suggested by a Latin oracle, the answer is, I think, that the latter was
used rather as a pretext for a pre-conceived plan; if it be true that
the Marcian verses had won some prestige among the vulgar, it was an
adroit stroke to invent one that might be used in this way. This is the
only way in which we can satisfactorily account for the direction to the
decemviri to undertake the necessary sacrifices. The government seizes a
chance of taking the material of _religio_ out of the hands of the
vulgar and utilising it for its own purposes. It was clever too to give
the alleged Latin oracles the sanction of the _Graecus ritus_;
"decemviri Graeco ritu hostiis sacra faciant," says the oracle. The
keepers consulted the sacred books as to the projected _ludi_, and
henceforward, as it would seem, these Latin oracles were placed in their
keeping to be added to the Sibylline books in the collection on the
Capitol. The amalgamation of Roman and Greek religion is complete. If
there were any doubt of it after the _lectisternia_ to the twelve gods
which we noticed just now, all such doubt is removed by the religious
events of this year 212--that famous year in which Hannibal came within
sight of Rome, and fell away again, never to return.
The student of Roman religious history, and of all religious psychology,
as he follows carefully the extracts from the priestly records which
Livy has embodied in his story of the last years of the great struggle,
will find much to interest him. Even little things have here their
significance. He will still find relics of the scruple about the
minutiae of the _ius divinum_ to which the Romans had become habituated
under priestly rule--_religio_ in that sense in which it is least really
religious. He will find a Flamen Dialis resigning his priesthood because
he had made a blunder in putting the _exta_ of a victim on the
altar;[696] only too ready, it may have been, to take an opportunity of
getting free of those numerous taboos which deprived the priest of
Jupiter of all possibility of active life. Such a conjecture finds
support in the curious fact that his successor was a youth of such bad
character that his relations induced the pontifex maximus to select him
for the sacred post, in hopes that the restrictive discipline he would
have to undergo might improve his morals and make him a better
citizen.[697] About the later history of this youth I may have something
to say in the next lecture. Again, we find _religio_ of the scrupulous
kind sadly worrying the stout old warrior Marcellus shortly before his
death[698]: "Aliae atque aliae obiectae animo religiones tenebant." One
of these _religiones_ was a curious one; he had vowed a temple of Honos
and Virtus--two deities together; and the pontifices made difficulties,
insisting that two deities could not inhabit the same _cella_, for if it
should be struck by lightning, how were you to tell, in conducting the
_procuratio_, to which of them to sacrifice? The difficulty was solved
by building two temples. Such quaintnesses of the old type of religious
idea are thus still found, but they are becoming mere survivals.
The _prodigia_ continue, and occasionally, as a new crisis in the war
was known to be approaching, became exacerbated. In 208, just before the
old consul Marcellus left the city to meet his death, he and his
colleague were terribly pestered with them, and could not succeed in
their sacrificing (_litare_). For many days they failed to secure the
_pax deorum_.[699] When it was known that Hasdrubal was on his way from
Spain, and that the greatest peril of the war was approaching, special
steps were taken to make sure of that _pax_.[700] The pontifices ordered
that twenty-seven maidens--a number of magical significance both in
Greece and Italy[701]--should chant a _carmen_ composed by the poet
Livius Andronicus; and in the elaborate ritual that followed, as the
result of the striking of the temple of Juno on the Aventine by
lightning, the decemviri and haruspices from Etruria also had a share.
The procession of the maidens, singing and dancing through the city till
they reached the temple of Juno by the Clivus Publicius, was a new
feature in ritual, and must have been a striking one. Doubtless it was
all a part of a deliberate policy to keep the women of the city in good
humour, and in touch with the religion of the State, instead of going
after other gods, as they had already gone and were again to go with
amazing and perilous fervour. For Juno Regina of the Aventine was their
special deity; and in this case they were authorised--all _matronae_
living within ten miles of the city--to contribute in money to a noble
gift to the temple.
Hasdrubal was defeated and killed (207), and the danger passed away.
Then, when the news reached Rome (if Livy's account may be relied on),
there followed such an outburst of gratitude to the deities as we have
never yet met with, and shall not meet with again in Roman history.[702]
It was not only that the State ordered a _supplicatio_ of three days
thanksgiving; men and women alike took advantage of it to press in
crowds to the temples, the materfamilias with her children, and in her
finest robes: "cum omni solutae metu, perinde ac si debellatum foret,
deis immortalibus grates agerent." I would draw attention to the fact
that here is no mere fulfilment of a vow, of a bargain, as some will
have it; in this moment of real religious emotion the first thought is
one of thankfulness that the _pax deorum_ is restored, and that the
Power manifesting itself in the universe, though in the humble form of
these dwellers in Roman temples, would permit the long-suffering people
once more to feel themselves in right relation to him. As we go on with
our studies in the two centuries that follow, let us bear this moment in
mind; it will remind us that the religious instinct never entirely dies
out in the heart of any people.
I would fain stop at this point, and have done with the war and its
religious troubles; but there is one more event which cannot be
omitted,--the solemn advent of a new deity, this time neither Greek nor
Italian. After the Metaurus battle, the dreaded Hannibal yet remained in
Italy, and so long as he was there the Romans could know no security. So
far as religion could help them every possible means had been used;
there seemed no expedient left. In 205 a pretext for inspecting the
Sibylline books was found in an unusual burst of pebble-rain; and there,
as it was given out, an oracle was deciphered, which foretold that
Hannibal would have to leave Italy if the Magna Mater of Pessinus were
brought to Rome.[703] In whose brain this idea originated we do not
know, but it was a brilliant one. The eastern cult was wholly unknown at
Rome, was something entirely new and strange, a fresh and hopeful
prescription for an exhausted patient. The project was seized on with
avidity, and supported by the influence of Delphi and of that strange
soldier mystic the great Scipio.[704] The best man in the State was to
receive the goddess, and when, after many months, she came to Italy in
the form of a black stone, it was Scipio who was chosen for the duty.
For Attalus, king of Pergamus, had consented to let her go from her
Phrygian home; and when she arrived at Ostia, Scipio with all the Roman
matrons went thither by land; alone he boarded the ship, received the
goddess from her priests, and carried her to land, where the noblest
women of the State received her,--received the black stone, that
is,--and carried it in their arms in turns, while all Rome poured out to
meet her, and burned incense at their doors as she passed by. And
praying that she might enter willingly and propitiously into the city,
they carried her into the temple of Victory on the Palatine on the 4th
of April, henceforward to be a festal day, the popular Megalesia.
This Magna Mater was the first Oriental deity introduced into Rome, and
the last deity introduced by the Sibylline books. It is probable that no
Roman then knew much about the real nature of her cult and its noisy
orgiastic character and other degrading features; it was sufficient to
have found a new prescription, and once more to have given the people,
and especially the women, a happy moment of hope and confidence. But the
truth came out soon enough; and though the goddess must have her own
priests, it was ordered by a _Senatusconsultum_ that no Roman should
take part in her service.[705] Though established in the heart of the
city, and ere long to have her own temple, she was to continue a foreign
deity outside the _ius divinum_. As such she belongs to those worships
with which I am not called upon by the plan of these lectures to deal.
Hannibal withdrew at last from Italy, and in 202 the war came to an end.
Looking at the divine inhabitants of the city in that year, we may see
in them almost as much a _colluvies nationum_ as in the human population
itself. Under such circumstances neither the old City-state nor its
religion could any longer continue to exist. The decay of the one
reflects that of the other; the failure to trust the _di indigetes_, the
constant desire to try new and foreign manifestations of divine power,
were sure signs that the State was passing into a new phase. In the next
two centuries Rome gained the world and lost her own soul.
NOTES TO LECTURE XIV
[655] The story is told in Livy x. 40 and 41, and must
have been taken by him from the records of the
pontifices, which had almost certainly begun by this
date (see above, p. 283). While on these chapters the
reader may also note the curious vow of this Papirius to
Jupiter Victor at the end of ch. xlii.; and the
description of the religious horrors of the Samnites
witnessed by the army, and especially the words
"respersae fando infandoque sanguine arae" (see above,
p. 196), which clearly indicate a practice abhorrent to
Romans.
[656] Val. Max. i. 5. 3 and 4; Cic. _de Div._ i. 16. 29;
Livy, _Epit._ xix.
[657] The _locus classicus_ is Livy xxi. 63.
[658] Cic. _de Div._ ii. 36. 77. I find an illustration
of this effect of lightning in Major Bruce's _Twenty
Years in the Himalaya_, p. 130: "Directly the ice-axes
begin to hum (in a storm) they should be put away."
[659] He notices it in connection with the war only in
iii. 112. 6, after the battle of Cannae: a striking
passage, but cast in general language.
[660] Livy xxi. 62 foll. Wissowa comments on this
passage in _R.K._ p. 223.
[661] See the author's _Social Life at Rome in the Age
of Cicero_, p. 28 foll.
[662] The rule seems to have been that no _prodigia_
were accepted, and _procurata_ by the authorities, which
were announced from beyond the ager Romanus. See Mommsen
in O. Jahn's edition of the _Periochae_ of Livy's books,
and of Iulius Obsequens, preface, p. xviii. But this
does not appear from the records of this war; and, at
any rate, the religious panic was Italian as well as
Roman.
[663] Red sand still occasionally falls in Italy,
brought by a sirocco from the Sahara, and this accounts
for the _prodigium_, "_pluit sanguine_," which is often
met with. I have a record of it in the _Daily Mail_ of
March 11, 1901. But the _lapides_ were probably of
volcanic origin.
[664] Wissowa, _R.K._ p. 328.
[665] This must have been a special performance of the
yearly Amburbium, of which unluckily we known hardly
anything (Wissowa, _R.K._ 130).
[666] _R.F._ p. 56, where unfortunately the word is
misprinted Pubertas. Wissowa, _R.K._ 126, thinks of Hebe
in a Latin form; in his view it must be a Greek deity,
being brought in by the decemviri and the books. But we
shall find that these begin now to interfere with Roman
cults, and in such a crisis we need not wonder at it.
Wissowa allows that we do not know where this Hebe can
have come from, nor, I may add, why she should have
come. That there was some special meaning in the
combination Juventas, Hercules, Genius I feel sure, and
I conjecture that it may be found in the urgent need of
a supply of _iuvenes_. Hercules and Genius seem both to
represent the male principle of life (_R.F._ 142 foll.).
Juventas speaks for herself, but we may remember that
the _tirones_ sacrificed to her on the day of the
Liberalia (17th March), and that Liber is almost
certainly another form of Genius (_R.F._ 55).
[667] Livy xxii. 1.
[668] It is only from this passage that we know of the
oracle. See Bouche-Leclercq, _Hist. de divination_, iv.
146. That of Caere is mentioned in Livy xxi. 62. Both
cities were mainly Etruscan.
[669] Livy xxvii. 37 betrays some knowledge of the
infectious nature of prodigy-reporting: "Sub unius
prodigii, ut fit, mentionem, alia quoque nuntiata."
[670] Pliny, _N.H._ xxxv. 115, where the verses are
quoted as inscribed on the paintings in her temple at
Ardea. Note that Juno is here called the wife of Jupiter
by a Greek artist from Asia.
[671] For Juno as the woman's deity and guardian spirit,
see above, p. 135. To refer this prominence of the
goddess to her connection with Carthage and mythical
enmity to the Romans, as we see it in the _Aeneid_, is
premature; we must suppose that each Juno was still a
local deity, and no general conception in the later
Greek sense is as yet possible.
[672] For Feronia, see _R.F._ 252 foll.
[673] The _procurationes_ ordered were doubtless
recorded in the _annales maximi_. The books of the
decemviri, we must suppose, were burnt with the oracles
in 38 B.C. (Diels, _Sib. Blaetter_, p. 6 note).
[674] Wissowa, _R.K._ 170; Marq. 586 foll.
[675] Livy xxii. 9-10.
[676] See above, p. 204 foll.; Strabo, p. 250; Festus,
p. 106.
[677] If it be asked why Jupiter is here without his
titles Optimus Maximus, the answer is that just below,
where _ludi magni_ are vowed to him, as all such _ludi_
were, he is also simply Jupiter.
[678] _R.K._ 356. In his view the new amalgam of twelve
gods was known as _di Consentes_, an expression of
Varro's which has been much discussed. See
Mueller-Deecke, _Etrusker_, ii. 83; _C.I.L._ vi. 102;
Wissowa, _Gesammelte Abhandlungen_, 190 foll. In _de Re
Rust._ i. 1, Varro speaks of twelve _dei consentes,
urbani_, whose gilded statues stood in the forum.
[679] Livy xxii. 57.
[680] See above, p. 207. Orosius' account of this is
worth reading; he calls it "obligamentum hoc magicum"
(iv. 13). He mentions a Gallic pair and a Greek woman,
and dates it in 226 (227 according to Wissowa,
_Gesammelte Abhandlungen_, p. 227). Cp. Plut. _Marcell._
3. Livy's words, "iam ante hostiis humanis, minime
Romano sacro, imbutum," agree with this. There must have
been an outbreak of feeling and recourse to the
Sibylline books in the stress of the Gallic war.
[681] _Sib. Blaetter_, p. 86.
[682] Pliny, _N.H._ xxviii. 12 and 13. Plutarch, _l.c._,
confirms him. Pliny, it may be noticed, is here writing
of spells, etc., among which he classes the _precatio_
of this rite.
[683] The first gladiatorial show was in 264 B.C. (Val.
Max. ii. 4. 7).
[684] The arguments are stated fully in his _Gesammelte
Abhandlungen_, 211 foll.
[685] The best account of these, or rather of the Argean
itinerary, of which fragments are preserved in Varro,
_L.L._ v. 45 foll., is still that of Jordan in his
_Roemische Topographie_, ii. 603 foll. The extracts seem
to be from a record of directions for the passage of a
procession round the _sacella_ (or _sacraria_, Varro v.
48). Though quoting these, Varro has nothing to say of
their origin, which would be strange indeed if they were
of such comparatively late date.
[686] In Varro, _L.L._ vii. 44. There is no doubt that
the line is from Ennius; it is also quoted as his in
Festus, p. 355.
[687] Schanz, _Gesch. der roem. Literatur_, vol. i. ed.
3, p. 110.
[688] Some examples of substitution will be found in
Westermarck, _Origin and Development of the Moral
Ideas_, i. 469. It is of course a well-known phenomenon,
but is now generally rejected as an explanation of
_oscilla_, _maniae_, etc. (see Wissowa, _R.K._ p. 355,
and Frazer, _G.B._ ii. 344). I know of no case of it on
good evidence at Rome, unless it be one in the
_devotio_, of an effigy for the soldier, ("ni moritur,"
Livy viii. 10).
[689] See _Roman Festivals_, p. 117, with references to
Mannhardt; Frazer, _G.B._ ii. 256; Farnell, _Cults of
the Greek States_, v. 181.
[690] Livy xxiii. 11. See also Diels, _Sib. Blaetter_,
pp. 11 and 92.
[691] Livy xxiv. 10.
[692] _Ib._ xxiv. 44.
[693] _Ib._ xxv. 1.
[694] _Ib._ xxv. 12. On the Marcian oracles and their
metre, see Bouche-Leclercq, _Hist. de divination_, iv.
128 foll.; Wissowa, _R.K._ 463 note 2; Diels, _op. cit._
p. 7 foll.
[695] See above, Lect. xi. p. 262. For the Apolline
games, _R.F._ p. 179 foll.
[696] Livy xxvi. 23.
[697] _Ib._ xxvii. 8.
[698] _Ib._ xxvii. 25; Plut. _Marcellus_, p. 28.
[699] _Ib._ xxvii. 23.
[700] _Ib._ xxvii. 37.
[701] The idea that this number was "chthonic" and a
monopoly of the Sibylline utterances was started by
Diels, _Sib. Blaetter_, p. 42 foll., with imperfect
anthropological knowledge, and has led Wissowa and
others into wrong conclusions, _e.g._ as to the Argei.
See an article criticising Wissowa in _Classical Rev._
1902, p. 211. On the whole subject of the number three
and its multiples, see Usener, "Dreizahl," in
_Rheinisches Museum_ for 1903, and Goudy, _Trichotomy in
Roman Law_ (Oxford, 1910), p. 5 foll.
[702] Livy xxvii. 51. For gratitude among Romans, see
above, p. 202. A gift of thanksgiving was sent to Delphi
(Livy xxviii. 45).
[703] _Ib._ xxix. 10 foll. For other references see
_R.F._ p. 69 foll.
[704] _Ib._ xxix. 10.
[705] Dion. Hal. ii. 19; _R.F._ p. 70.
LECTURE XV
AFTER THE HANNIBALIC WAR
The long and deadly struggle with Hannibal ended in 201 B.C., and no
sooner was peace concluded than the Senate determined on war with
Macedon. This decision is a critical moment in Roman history, for it
initiated not only a long period of advance and the eventual supremacy
of Rome in the Eastern Mediterranean, but also an age of narrow
aristocratic rule which remained unquestioned till revolution broke out
with Tiberius Gracchus. But we cannot safely deny that it was a just
decision. Hannibal was alive, and his late ally, Philip of Macedon, now
in sinister coalition with Antiochus of Syria, might be capable of
invading exhausted Italy. To have an enemy once more in the peninsula
would probably be fatal to Rome and Italy, and one more effort was
necessary in order to avert such a calamity; an effort that must be made
at once, while Carthage lay prostrate.
It is necessary to grasp fully the danger of the moment if we are to
understand the part played by religion (if I may use the word) in
bringing about the desired result. It was most difficult to persuade a
people worn out by one war that it was essential for their safety that
they should at once face another. Historians naturally look on the
success of the Senate in this task as due to its own prestige, and to
the skilful oratory of the Consul in the speech to the people which Livy
has reproduced in his own admirable rhetoric. But a closer examination
of the chapters at the beginning of the historian's thirty-first book
will show that religion too was used, in accordance with the experience
of the late war, to put pressure on the voters and to inspire their
confidence. As we saw in the last lecture, they had been constantly
cheered and braced by religious expedients,--their often-recurring
_religio_ had been soothed and satisfied; now the same means were to be
used positively rather than negatively, to help in urging them to a
definite course of action. Some sixty years later Polybius, writing of
the extreme religiousness of the Romans, expressed his conviction that
religion was invented for political objects, and only serves as the
means of bridling the fickle and unreasoning Demos; for if it were
possible to have a State consisting of wise men only, no such
institution would be necessary.[706] The philosophic historian is here
thinking mainly of the way in which religion was turned to account by
the Roman authorities in his own lifetime. We cannot have a better
illustration of this than the events of the year 200 B.C.
Already, in the autumn of the previous year, the ground had been
prepared. To the plebeian games in November there had been added a feast
of Jupiter (_Iovis epulum_), as had been done more than once during the
late war.[707] Jupiter, in the form of his image in the Capitoline
temple, lay on his couch at the feast of the outgoing plebeian
magistrates, with his face reddened with minium as at a triumph, and
Juno and Minerva sat each on her _sella_ on either side of him; and to
give practical point to this show, corn from Africa was distributed at
four asses the modius, or at most one quarter of the normal price. When
the new consuls entered on office on the ides of the following March,
further religious steps were at once taken; the political atmosphere was
charged with religiosity. On the first day of their office the consuls
were directed by the Senate, doubtless with the sanction of the
pontifices, to _sacrifice to such deities as they might select_, with a
special prayer for the success of the new war which Senate and people
(the latter by a clever anticipation) are contemplating. Haruspices from
Etruria had been adroitly procured, and no doubt primed, who reported
that the gods had accepted this prayer, and that the examination of the
victims portended extension of the Roman frontier, victory, and
triumph.[708] Yet, in spite of all this, the people were not yet
willing; in almost all the centuries, when the voting for the war took
place, they rejected the proposal of the Senate. Then the consul
Sulpicius was put up to address them, and at the end of Livy's version
of his speech we find him clinching his political arguments with
religious ones. "Ite in suffragium, bene iuvantibus dis, et quae Patres
censuerunt, vos iubete. Huius vobis sententiae non consul modo auctor
est, sed etiam di immortales; qui mihi sacrificanti ... laeta omnia
prosperaque portendere." Thus adjured, the people yielded; and as a
reward, and to stifle any _religio_ that might be troubling them, they
are treated to a _supplicatio_ of three days, including an "_obsecratio
circa omnia pulvinaria_" for the happy result of the war; and once more,
after the levy was over,--a heavy tax on the patience of the
people,--the consul made vows of _ludi_ and a special gift to Jupiter,
in case the State should be intact and prospering five years from that
day.[709]
Exactly the same religious machinery was used a few years later to gain
the consent of the people for a war of far less obvious necessity,--that
with Antiochus of Syria. It was at once successful. The haruspices were
again on the spot and gave the same report; and then, _solutis religione
animis_, the centuries sanctioned the war. The vow that followed, of
which Livy gives a modernised wording, was for _ludi_ to last ten
continuous days, and for gifts of money at all the _pulvinaria_, where
now, as we gather from these same chapters, the images of the gods were
displayed on their couches during the greater part of the year.[710]
We may realise in accounts like these how far we have left behind us the
old Roman religion we discussed in earlier lectures. That religion did
not any longer supply the material needed; it was not suited to be the
handmaid of a political or military policy; it was a real religion, not
invented for political purposes, to use Polybius' language, but itself a
part of the life of the State, whether active in war, or law, or
politics. In the ceremonies I have just been describing almost all the
features are foreign,--the _pulvinaria_, the haruspices, perhaps even
the _Iovis epulum_; and we feel that though the _religio_ in the minds
of the people is doubtless a genuine thing, yet the means taken to
soothe it are far from genuine,--they are _mala medicamenta_, quack
remedies. Such is the method by which a shrewd, masterly government
compels the obedience of a _populus religiosus_. After long experience
of such methods, can we wonder that Polybius could formulate his famous
view of religion, or that a great and good Roman lawyer, himself
pontifex maximus, could declare that political religion stands quite
apart from the religion of the poets, or that of the philosophers, and
must be acted on, whether true or false?[711]