deities of whom I have been speaking: Hercules, Castor, Minerva, Diana.
It must be confessed that, as compared with the great deities of the
calendar, they are uninteresting; with the exception, perhaps, of
Hercules, they do not seem to have any real _religious_ significance.
They are local deities brought in from outside, and have no root in the
mind of the Roman people as we have so far been studying it. They seem
to indicate the growth of a population in which the true old Roman
religious instinct was absent; they represent commerce, business,
handicraft, or politics, pursuits in which the old Roman and Latin
farmers were not directly interested; they were suffered to be in Rome
because the new population and the new interests must of necessity have
their own worships, but they were not taken into the heart and mind of
the people. So at least it seems to us, after we have been examining the
development of the native religious plant from its root upwards. But we
must remember that of that new population, its life and its needs, we
know hardly anything, and it would not be safe to assume that the
conception of Minerva had no influence on the conscience of the artisan,
or that of Hercules no power of binding the trader to honest dealing and
respect for his oath. As for Diana, though, as Dr. Carter says, she had
been introduced "as part of a diplomatic game, not because Rome felt any
religious need of her," the fact that the Latin treaty was kept in her
temple has a certain moral as well as political significance which ought
not to be overlooked. It is impossible to put ourselves mentally in the
position of the men who brought these cults to Rome, or of the Romans
who granted them admittance; but we shall be on the safe side if we
imagine the former at least to have had a conviction that their dealings
at Rome would not prosper unless they were carried out with the blessing
of their own gods.
But we now come, in the last place, to the foundation of a cult of a
very different kind from these, and of far greater import than any of
them in the history of Roman religious experience. We have seen that the
temple of Diana on the Aventine meant the transference of the headship
of the Latin league from Aricia to Rome. When Rome took over this
headship, and by removing its religious centre to Rome--or, perhaps more
accurately, by offering Diana of Aricia a new home by the Tiber--removed
also any danger of a new power growing up in Latium outside her own
influence, she seems to have taken another important step in the same
direction. Archaeological evidence confirms the tradition that at this
time the temple of Jupiter Latiaris, the real and original god of the
league, on the Alban hill, was rebuilt;[494] and as the remains of its
foundation are of Etruscan workmanship, we may believe that the work was
undertaken at that period of an Etruscan dominion in Rome which no one
now seriously doubts, and which is marked by the Etruscan name
Tarquinius, and by the old tradition that Servius Tullius was really an
Etruscan bearing the Etruscan name Mastarna.[495] Now those in power at
Rome at this time, whoever they were, not content with rebuilding the
ancient temple of Jupiter on the Alban hill, conceived the idea of also
building a great temple at Rome, on the steep rock overlooking the
Forum, to the same deity of the heaven who had long presided over the
Latin league. The tradition was that this temple was vowed by the first
Tarquinius, begun by the second, and finally dedicated by the first
consul Horatius in the year 509.[496] It is quite possible that this
tradition indicates the truth in outline--that it was an Etruscan who
conceived the idea of the great work, and that the foreign domination
gave way to a Roman reaction before the temple was ready for dedication.
We cannot know what exactly was the Etruscan intention as to the cult;
but we know that the temple was built in the Etruscan style, that its
foundations were of Etruscan masonry,[497] and that the deities
inhabiting it were three--a _trias_--a feature quite foreign to the
native Roman religion.[498] Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva had each a
separate dwelling (_cella_) within the walls of the temple, which, in
order to meet this innovation, was almost as broad as it was long.
Whether this trias was the one originally intended by the Etruscan king
or kings it is impossible to say; but I have great doubts of it. I
confess that I have no ground but probability to go on when I conjecture
that a long period elapsed between the beginning of this great
undertaking and the final completion, and that in the meantime many
things had happened of which we have no record; that when the temple was
finished it was in Roman hands, though retaining its Etruscan
characteristics, and especially the combination of three deities; and
that those three deities were essentially Roman in conception. Roman,
too, was the idea that one of the three should be paramount; the two
goddesses never attained to any special significance, and the temple
always remained essentially the dwelling of the great Jupiter, the
Father of heaven.[499]
The cult-titles of this Jupiter, Optimus Maximus, the best and greatest,
seem to raise him to a position not only far above his colleagues in the
temple, but above all other Jupiters in Latium or elsewhere, and
presumably above all other deities. They thus suggest a deliberate
attempt to place him in a higher position than even the Jupiter Latiaris
of the Mons Albanus, whose temple had been rebuilt in the same period.
The very novelty of such cult-titles betrays both power and genius in
their originator; they are wholly unlike any we have met with so far;
they do not suggest a function or a locality or a connection with some
other deity; they stand absolutely alone in the history of the Roman
religion till far on in the Empire.[500] Here is no _numen_ needed at a
particular season to bless some agricultural operation; Jupiter Optimus
Maximus seems hardly to be limited by space or season, and is to be
always there looking down on his people from his seat on the hill which
was henceforward to be called Capitolinus, because the space which had
been prepared there for his reception bore the name of Capitolium, the
place of headship.[501] These titles, Best and Greatest, call for
reflection, for more thought than we are apt to give them; one wonders
whether they can be as old as tradition claimed, and in fact at least
one recent writer has been tempted, without sufficient reason, to date
the whole foundation two centuries later than the Tarquinii.[502] To me
they rather suggest the hypothesis that the break-up of the Etruscan
domination in Rome was the work of a man or men inspired by a new
national feeling which ascribed the revolution to the great god of the
race, to whose shrine on the same hill the kings had been used to bring
the spoils of their enemies[503]; and that they took advantage of the
uncompleted Etruscan temple, with its huge foundations and underground
_favissae_, to settle there a new Jupiter, better and greater than any
other, to whom his people would be for ever grateful, and in whom they
would for ever put their trust. All older associations with cults of the
Heaven-god were to be banished from the Capitolium, just as all other
deities were believed to have fled from the spot, save only Terminus;
the ancient priest of Jupiter, the Flamen Dialis, had no special
connection with this temple and its cult, which were under the immediate
charge of an _aedituus_ only.[504] Here was the centre of the public
worship of the State as a whole, not only of the old patrician State;
and no such ancient curiosity as the Flamen Dialis, who, as I have
suggested, was a survival from some older era of Latin religious
history, was to be supreme there. Here the Consul of the free Republic
was to offer, on entering office, the victim--the white heifer of the
Alban cult--which his predecessor had vowed, and himself to bind his
successor to a like sacrifice; and this he did on behalf of patrician
and plebeian alike. Here the victorious general was to deposit his
spoils, reaching the temple in the solemn procession of the _triumphus_,
and wearing the _ornamenta_ of the deity himself; for here, contrary to
all precedent in the worship of Romans, there was an image of the god
wrought in terra cotta and brought from Etruria.[505] It is in
connection with such solemn events as these that we may find the origin
of those imposing processions which for centuries were to impress the
minds of the Roman people, and indeed of their enemies also, with the
might and magnificence of their Empire; for apart from the triumphal
processions with which we are all familiar, the scene at the entrance of
new consuls on their office must have been most impressive. They were
accompanied by the other magistrates, the Senate, the priests in their
robes of office, and by an immense crowd of citizens. After the ceremony
the Senate met _in the temple_ to transact the first religious business
of the year. Here too the tribal assembly met for the purpose of
enrolling the new levies before each season of war, in order that the
youths who were to fight the battles of Rome might realise the presence
of Rome's great protecting deity. Even in the most degenerate days of
the Roman religion, though Jupiter had suffered from the ridicule of
playwrights or the speculations of philosophers, an orator's appeal to
the Best and Greatest looking down on the Forum from his seat above it,
could not fail to move the hearers; "Ille, ille Iuppiter restitit,"
cried Cicero in the peril of the Catilinarian conspiracy, "ille
Capitolium, ille haec templa, ille cunctam urbem, ille vos omnes salvos
esse voluit."[506]
Nor was it only the State as represented by its officials that could and
did address itself to the worship of this great god. It seems probable
that the new idea of a single guardian deity, with his two attendant
goddesses, for which the Romans were indebted to the genius (whoever he
may have been) who released them from the yoke of the Etruscan, opened
the cult to the individual in a way which must have been a novelty in
the religious life of the people.[507] The most memorable example of
this is in the famous story told of Scipio, the conqueror of Hannibal,
which is not likely to be an invention of the annalists. As Gellius
records it, it stands thus: Scipio was wont to ascend to the temple just
before daylight, to order the _cella Iovis_ to be opened for him, and
there to remain alone for a long time, as if taking counsel with the
god about the affairs of the State. The dogs, it was said, which guarded
the entrance, astonished the temple-keepers by treating him always with
respect, while they would attack or bark at others.[508]
The reader may remark, that during the last few minutes I have wandered
quite away from the Roman religion which we have so far been trying to
understand, and he will be right. I have but just touched on this great
cult, which properly belongs to Rome of the Republic, in order to show
how great a change must have taken place, how great a revolution must
have been consummated, when this temple arose on its Etruscan
substructures. We have marked two forward steps in the social and
political experience of the Romans: the settlement of the family on the
land and the organisation of the City-state with its calendar. Here is a
third, the liberation of that State from a foreign dominion, and the
development, in matters both internal and external, which subjection and
liberation alike brought with them. In regard to religious experience,
the first produced the ordered worship of the household, which had a
lasting effect on the Roman character; the second produced the _ius
divinum_, the priesthoods and the ritual for the service of the various
_numina_ which had consented to take up their abode in the city and its
precincts. These two taken together changed doubt and anxiety into
confidence, stilled the _religio_ natural to uncivilised man, and
developed the machinery of magic into forms and ceremonies which were
more truly religious. Now we note a third great social step forward,
which brings with it a new conception and expression of the religious
unity of the State; henceforward, alongside of a multiplicity of cults
and of priests attached to them, we have one central worship to which
all free citizens may resort, and a trinity of guardian deities, of whom
one, Jupiter Best and Greatest, is the one presiding genius of the whole
State.
Lastly, there can hardly be a doubt that this new cult marks a more
extensive communication with neighbouring peoples than the State had as
yet experienced or encouraged. Etruria, Latium, and Greece, all seem to
have had a hand in it. Of its relation to the Latins and Etruscans I
have already spoken. It only remains for me to note the fact that it was
here, in this Capitoline temple, according to unanimous tradition, that
those legendary "Sibylline books" were deposited which came from a Greek
source, and according to the story, from Cumae.[509] These mysterious
books were destined to change the whole character of the religion of the
Romans during the next two centuries; and this is why the dedication of
the great temple is a convenient halting-place on our journey. I propose
to begin the second part of my subject by examining the nature of this
change, and then to pass on to others, until we have reached the end of
the religious experience of the genuine Roman people.
NOTES TO LECTURE X.
[464] _Origin and Development of Moral Ideas_, chapters
l.-lii.: "Gods as guardians of morality."
[465] Crawley, _The Tree of Life_, in a remarkable
chapter on the function of religion (ch. ix.),
especially p. 287 foll. "Morality," says Mr. Crawley,
"is one of the results of the religious impulse." What
he means here by morality is not "that elaborated by
abstract thinkers," but the "morality of elemental human
nature." "Elemental morality" may be a somewhat obscure
term; but I think it is highly probable that Mr. Crawley
is, in part at least, right in ascribing the origin of
morality to the religious impulse.
[466] Crawley, _op. cit._, p. 265.
[467] Above, pp. 107-8.
[468] See the author's article in _Hibbert Journal_ for
July 1907, p. 894.
[469] Wissowa, _R.K._ p. 15 foll.
[470] _Ib._ p. 421: Aust, _Religion der Roemer_, p. 47.
[471] I am, of course, well aware that quite recently
attempts have been made to explain the _plebs_ as the
original inhabitants of Latium, and the Romans as
conquering invaders; _e.g._ by Prof. Ridgeway in his
paper, "Who were the Romans," read to the British
Academy, and by Binder in his recently published volume
_Die Plebs_. The theory is a natural one, and not out
of harmony with the facts as known; but it has yet to be
further developed and tested, and as those who hold it
are not as yet in agreement with each other, and as the
evidence which alone can prove it is of a very special
character, archaeological and linguistic, I have
expressed myself in terms of the older view.
[472] _The Religion of Numa_, p. 30.
[473] _Aen._ viii. 184 foll.; the description of the
festival is in 280 foll.; where the interesting points
are the priests of the gentes appointed to look after
the cult (the Potitii only are here mentioned) "pellibus
in morem cincti," and the Salii "populeis evincti
tempora ramis."
[474] Wissowa, _R.K._ p. 219 foll.; Carter, _Religion of
Numa_, p. 31 foll. The ground had been prepared for the
new view by the elaborate articles in Roscher's
_Mythological Lexicon_, vol. ii. pp. 2253 foll. and 2901
foll. Of late a painstaking discussion by J. G. Winter
has appeared in the _University of Michigan Studies for
1910_, p. 171 foll.; he mainly confirms Wissowa's
conclusions, but provisionally accepts a suggestion of
mine (_R.F._ 197) that the tithe practice of the _ara
maxima_ may possibly have been of Phoenician origin, and
points out that E. Curtius made the same suggestion as
long ago as 1845. On p. 269 he also dwells, very
properly, I think, on the part which the Etruscans may
have had in the dissemination of the myth and cult of
the Greek Heracles. Wissowa, however, stoutly maintains
that these are simply Greek and of commercial origin. It
has been Wissowa's special and valuable function to
elucidate the Greek origin of many Roman cults and
legends; but I doubt if he has adequately considered the
influence of other peoples, and in particular of
Phoenicians and Etruscans. Certainly the Hercules
question is not finally settled by his masterly analysis
of it in _R.K._ p. 220 foll. But most of what I said in
_R.F._ about the Hercules of the _ara maxima_ may now be
considered obsolete; and I may add that my remarks on
the supposed connection of Hercules with Genius, Dius
Fidius, and Jupiter in the same work, p. 143 foll., have
lost much strength since Wissowa's book appeared. Yet I
am not prepared to accept the view which would deny to
Hercules on Italian soil all contamination with Italian
ideas; as Willamowitz-Moellendorf puts it (_Herakles_,
ed. 2, vol. i. p. 25), "Die Italiker haben dem Koerper,
den sie uebernahmen, den Odem ihrer eigenen Seele
eingeblasen: aber wie der Name ist der Gestalt des
Hercules hellenischer Import." There are points in
connection with the Roman Hercules, _e.g._ the _nodus
herculaneus_ of the bride's girdle, which Wissowa does
not explain, and which, so far as I can see, can only be
explained by assuming that, as might have been expected,
the Greek Hercules became to some extent entangled in
the web of Italian thought.
[475] The cult was Greek in detail; _Graeco ritu_,
according to Varro as quoted by Macrobius iii. 6. 17;
see also references in Wissowa, _R.K._ 222, note 2.
Following R. Peter in the articles in Roscher, I
assumed, in _R.F._ p. 194, that this might be a later
reconstruction of an originally Italian cult; but for
the present it is safer to look on the _Graecus ritus_
as primitive, and on the presence of Salii, a genuine
Italian institution, as brought from Tibur by the gens
Pinaria, of which there is a trace in that city
(_C.I.L._ xiv. 3541). There also Salii were engaged in
the cult of Hercules Victor, to whom tithes were also
offered (_C.I.L._ xiv. 3541). The evidence for the
theory that the cult came to Rome from Tibur is
summarised by Wissowa, _R.K._ p. 220.
[476] _Op. cit._, p. 37.
[477] For the connection of the cult with trade,
Wissowa, _R.K._ 225; and the story told in Macrobius
iii. 6. 11, from Masurius Sabinus, of a _tibicen_ who
became a merchant and had an interview with the god in a
dream. For the connection with _oaths_, _R.F._ p. 138. I
may say before leaving Hercules that though I accept the
latest hypotheses provisionally, I am far from believing
that the last word has been said on the subject.
[478] See, _e.g._, Lanciani, _Ruins and Excavations of
Ancient Rome_, p. 271 foll. The date of the temple is
482 B.C., but it was vowed in 496 after the Regillus
battle. The three columns still standing date from 7
B.C.
[479] Wissowa, _R.K._ p. 217, who points out that the
Dioscuri never appear in _lectisternia_ at Rome, as they
do at Tusculum, which shows that the latter cult was
more directly Greek than that at Rome, and that the
Roman authorities admitted it as a Latin cult without
the Greek details.
[480] Carter, _op. cit._ p. 38. There seemed to be
difficulties in the way of his conclusion; the Dioscuri
were very strong in the Peloponnese, yet the Spartans
neglected the use of cavalry. At any rate the theory
needs careful historical testing. See article "Dioscuri"
in Pauly-Wissowa, _Real-Encycl._ It would seem natural
that when once the cult had been introduced by traders
it might become specially attached to the cavalry, owing
to the ancient connection of the Twins with horses.
[481] Ecastor and Edepol, which were oaths used
especially by women, who were not allowed to swear by
Hercules, Gell. xi. 6.
[482] The reasoning will be found in full in Wissowa,
_R.K._ p. 203 foll., and in his article "Minerva" in the
_Mythological Lexicon_. See also Carter, _Religion of
Numa_, p. 45 foll. For the position of this temple and
that of Diana on the Aventine, a suburb which cannot be
proved to have been then within any city wall, see
Carter in _Proceedings of the American Philosophical
Society for 1909_, p. 136 foll.
[483] Waltzing, _Etude historique sur les corporations
romaines_, vol. i. pp. 63 and 199. The relation between
town life and trades is stated with his usual insight by
von Jhering, _Evolution of the Aryan_, p. 93 foll.
[484] See Mueller-Deecke, _Etrusker_, ii. 47; Deecke,
_Falisker_, p. 89 foll.
[485] Minerva or Menrva is assuredly not Etruscan,
though frequently found on Etruscan monuments; see
Deecke, _l.c._ p. 89 foll.
[486] Fasti Praenestini in _C.I.L._ i.^2 March 19.
"Artificum dies (quod Minervae) aedis in Aventino eo die
est (dedicata)." This is one of those additional notes
in the Fast. Praen., which are believed to have been the
work of Verrius Flaccus: see _Roman Festivals_, p. 12.
[487] Wissowa, _Gesammelte Abhandlungen_, p. 288. We
know the fact from Strabo's account of Massilia, Bk. iv.
p. 180.
[488] Dion. Hal. iv. 26. See _R.F._ p. 198.
[489] Statius, _Silvae_ iii. 1. 60. See Wissowa's
article "Diana" in Pauly-Wissowa, _Real-Encycl._
[490] Wissowa, _l.c._ p. 332.
[491] _Golden Bough_, i. p. 1 foll.; _Early History of
the Kingship_, Lecture I.
[492] Varro, _L.L._ 5. 43; Carter, _op. cit._ p. 55.
[493] See on Fortuna the exhaustive article by R. Peter
in the _Mythological Lexicon_; Wissowa, _R.K._ 206
foll.; _R.F._ p. 161 foll., and 223 foll.; Carter, _op.
cit._ p. 50 foll. Dr. Carter seems to me to be too
certain of the absence of any idea of luck or chance in
the original conception of Fortuna: the word _fors_, so
far as we know, never had any other meaning, and the
deity Fors must be a personification of an abstraction,
like Ops, Fides, and Salus. See Axtell, _Deification of
abstract idea in Roman literature_, p. 9, with whom I
agree in rejecting the notion of Marquardt and Wissowa
that she was a deity of horticulture. He rightly points
out that she is not included in the list of agricultural
deities in Varro, _R.R._ i. 1. 6.
[494] See Aust in his article "Jupiter" in the _Myth.
Lex._ p. 689, where the evidence for the contemporaneous
origin of the temple on the Alban hill and that on the
Capitol is fully stated. In this case excavations have
confirmed the Roman tradition, which ascribed the former
temple to one or other of the Tarquinii. Jordan, _Roem.
Top._ i. pt. 2. p. 9.
[495] See the speech of Claudius the emperor, _C.I.L._
xiii. 1668, printed in Furneaux' _Tacitus' Annals_, vol.
ii. Gardthausen, _Mastarna_, p. 40; Mueller-Deecke,
_Etrusker_, i. 111. For the Etruscan name Mastarna, see
Dennis, _Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria_^3, ii. 506
foll.: Gardthausen gives a cut of the painting found in
a tomb at Vulci in which he appears with the name
attached. Even the ultra-sceptical Pais does not doubt
the fact of an Etruscan domination in Rome; but he does
not believe the Tarquinii and Mastarna to have been
historical personages, and will not date the temples
attributed to this age earlier than the fourth century
B.C. See his _Ancient Legends of Roman History_, ch.
vii.; _Storia di Roma_, i. 310 foll. But the names of
these kings do not concern us, except so far as they
connect Etruria with Roman history in the sixth century.
[496] Cic. _Rep._ ii. 24. 44; Livy i. 38. and 55;
Dionys. iii. 69; iv. 59. 61. The whole evidence will be
found collected in Jordan, _Topogr._ i. pt. ii. p. 9
foll., and in Aust, _Myth. Lex._, _s.v._ Jupiter, p. 706
foll. If the date 509 were seriously impugned Roman
chronology would be in confusion, for this is believed
to be the earliest date on which we can rely, and on it
the subsequent chronology hangs: Mommsen, _Roem.
Chronologie_, ed. 2, p. 198.
[497] Aust, p. 707 foll.; Jordan, _op. cit._, p. 9.
[498] _i.e._ the admission of more than one deity into a
single building. The word "trias" is sometimes used of
the three old Roman deities, Jupiter, Mars, Quirinus
(_e.g._ by Wissowa, _Myth. Lex._ _s.v._ Quirinus), but
this is in a different sense. On the idea of a trias
generally, see Kuhfeldt, _de Capitoliis imperii Romani_,
p. 82 foll.; Cumont, _Religions orientales dans le
paganisme romain_, p. 290, note 51.
[499] The technical name of the temple was aedes Iovis
Opt. Max.: for other indications of Jupiter's supremacy
see Aust, p. 720.
[500] On Oriental developments of Jupiter Opt. Max. see
an interesting paper by Cumont in _Archiv_ for 1906, p.
323 foll. (_Iuppiter summus exsuperantissimus_). A
relief in the Berlin Museum has a dedication _I.O.M.
summo exsuperantissimo_; but Prof. Cumont believes the
deity to have been really Oriental, introduced by Greek
philosophical theologians in the last century B.C., but
probably Chaldaean in origin.
[501] Jordan, _op. cit._ p. 7 and note. It is uncertain
whether the whole hill had any earlier name. The Mons
Saturnius of Varro, _L.L._ v. 42, with the legend of an
oppidum _Saturnia_, and the Mons Tarpeius (_Rhet. ad
Herenn._, iv. 32. 43; Pais, _Ancient Legends_, chs. v.
and vi.) need not be taken into account.
[502] Pais, _Ancient Legends of Roman History_, ch. v.
[503] See above, p. 130.