contemplate the work of this shrewd statesman too entirely from the
political point of view. I am sure that he had learnt from his
predecessors in power that reform on political lines only was without
any element of stability, and that he knew that it was far more
important to touch a spring in the feeling of the people, than to occupy
himself, like Sulla, in mending old machinery or inventing new. If he
could but induce them to believe in him as the restorer of the _pax
deorum_, he knew that his work was accomplished. And I believe that we
have what is practically his own word for this conviction; not in his
Res Gestae, the _Monumentum Ancyranum_, which is a record of facts and
of deeds only, but in the famous hymn which Horace wrote at his instance
and to give expression to his ideas, for use in the Secular Games of 17
B.C., to which I am coming presently. Ferrero has lately described that
hymn as a magnificent poem,[908] an opinion which to me is
incomprehensible. It is neat, and embodies the necessary ideas
adequately, but it is far too flat to be the genuine offspring of such a
poet as Horace. To me it reads as though Augustus had written it in
prose and then ordered his poet to put it into metre; and assuredly it
expresses exactly what we should have expected Augustus to wish to be
sung by his youthful choirs. I shall refer to it again shortly to
illustrate another point; all I need say now is that he who reads it
carefully and thinks about it will find there the conviction of which I
have been speaking, that prosperity and fertility, whether of man,
beast, or crop, depend on the Roman's attitude toward his deities;
religion, morality, fertility, and public concord are the points which
the astute ruler wished to be emphasised.[909] That this hymn was a
really important part of the ceremony is certain from the fact that it
was given to the best living poet to write, and that his name is
mentioned as its author in the inscription, discovered not many years
ago, which commemorated the whole performance: "CARMEN COMPOSUIT Q.
HORATIUS FLACCUS."[910]
If, then, I am right, this strange movement was not merely a revival of
religious ceremonies, but an appeal through them to the conscience of
the people. A revival of religious _life_ it, of course, was not, for
what we understand by that term had never existed at Rome; but it was an
attempt to give expression, in a religious form and under State
authorisation, to certain feelings and ideas not far removed in kind
from those which in our own day we describe as our religious experience.
Whether Augustus himself shared in these feelings and ideas it is, of
course, impossible to conjecture. But as a man's religious convictions
are largely the result of his own experience and of that of the society
in which he lives, and as Augustus' own experience for the twenty years
before he took this work in hand had been full of trial and temptation,
I am disposed to guess that he was rather expressing a popular
conviction which he shared himself than merely standing apart and
administering a remedy. And this view seems to me to be on the whole
confirmed by the tone and spirit of the great literary works of the age.
Augustus did not become pontifex maximus till the year 12 B.C., nineteen
years after he had crushed Antony at Actium; he waited with scrupulous
patience until the headship of the Roman religion became vacant by the
death of Lepidus.[911] But this did not prevent him from pursuing his
religious policy with great earnestness before that date, for he had
long been a member of the pontifical college, as well as augur and
quindecemvir. No sooner had he returned to Rome from Egypt than the work
of temple restoration began, the outward and visible sign to all that
the _pax deorum_ was to be firmly re-established. The fact of the
restoration he has told us in half a dozen words in his own Res
Gestae:[912] "Duo et octaginta templa deum in urbe ex decreto senatus
refeci," adding that not one was neglected that needed repair. Among
them was that oldest and smallest temple of Jupiter Feretrius on the
Capitol to which I referred in a former lecture;[913] and his personal
interest in the work is attested by Livy, who says that he himself heard
Augustus tell how he had found an inscription, relating to the second
_spolia opima_ dedicated there, when he went into the temple bent on the
work of restoration.[914] It needs but a little historical imagination
to appreciate the psychological importance of all this work. We have to
think not only of the bystanders who watched, but of the very workmen
themselves, rejoicing at once in new employment and in the revival of an
old sense of religious duty. Little more than twenty years earlier, no
workman could be found to lay a hand upon the newly-built temple of
Isis, when the consul Aemilius Paulus gave orders for its destruction as
a centre of _superstitio_;[915] now abundant work was provided which
every man's conscience would approve. When I think of the Rome of that
year 28, with all its fresh hope and confidence taking visible shape in
this way, even Horace's famous lines seem cold to me (_Od._ ii. 6. 1):
delicta maiorum immeritus lues
Romane, donec templa refeceris
aedesque labentis deorum et
foeda nigro simulacra fumo.
The restoration of the temple buildings implies also a revival of the
old ritual, the _cura et caerimonia_. As to this we are very imperfectly
informed,--we have no correspondence of this age, as of the last, and
the details of life in the Augustan city are not preserved in abundance.
But Ovid comes to the rescue here, as in secular matters, and on the
whole the evidence in his _Fasti_ suggests that the old sacrificing
priesthoods, the Rex and the flamines, were set to their work again. He
tells us, for example, how he himself, as he was returning to Rome from
Nomentum,[916] had seen the flamen Quirinalis carrying out the _exta_ of
a dog and a sheep which had been sacrificed in the morning in the city,
to be laid on the altar in the grove of Robigus. In spite of all its
disabling restrictions, it was possible once more to fill the ancient
priesthood of Jupiter; and of the Rex sacrorum and the other flamines we
hear in the early Empire.[917] They were in the _potestas_ of the
pontifex maximus, and as after 12 B.C. that position was always held by
the Princeps himself, it was not likely that they would be allowed to
neglect their duties. Other ancient colleges were also revived or
confirmed by the inclusion of the Emperor himself among their members (a
fact which Augustus was careful to record in his own words), _e.g._ the
Fetiales, of whom he had made use when declaring war with Antony and
Cleopatra;[918] the Sodales Titienses, an institution of which we have
lost the origin and meaning; the Salii, Luperci, and above all the
Fratres Arvales, the brotherhood whose duty it had once been to lead a
procession round the crops in May, and so to ensure the _pax deorum_ for
the most vital material of human subsistence. The corn-supply now came
almost entirely from Africa and Egypt; the inner meaning of this old
ritual could not be revived, and we must own that all this restoration
of the old _caerimonia_ must have appealed rather to the eye than the
mind of the beholder. It was necessary to put some new element into it
to give it life. Here we come upon a most important fact in the work of
Augustus, which will become apparent if we take a rapid glance at the
work and history of the Fratres, and then go on to find further
illustration of the curious mixture of old and new which the Roman
religion was henceforward to be.
The fortunate survival of large fragments of the records of the
Brotherhood, dating from shortly after the battle of Actium, show that
it continued to work and to flourish down to the reign of Gordian (A.D.
241), and from other sources we know that it was still in existence in
the fourth century.[919] These records have been found on the site of
the sacred grove, at the fifth milestone on the via Campana between Rome
and Ostia, which from the time of this revival onwards was the centre of
the activity of the Fratres.
The brethren were twelve in number, with a _magister_ at their head and
a flamen to assist him; they were chosen from distinguished families by
co-optation, the reigning Emperor being always a member.[920] Their
duties fell into two divisions, which most aptly illustrate respectively
the old and the new ingredients in the religious prescriptions of
Augustus, as they were carried out by his successors. The first of these
is the performance of the yearly rites in honour of the Dea Dia, the
goddess or _numen_ without a substantival name (a form perhaps of Ceres
and Tellus), whose home was in the sacred grove, and who was the special
object of this venerable cult. Secondly, the care of vows, prayers, and
sacrifices for the Emperors and other members of the imperial house. I
must say a few words about each of these divisions of duty.
The worship of the Dea Dia took place in May on three days, with an
interval always of one day between the first and second, according to
the old custom of the calendar.[921] On the first, preliminary rites
were performed at Rome, in the house of the magister; on the second was
the most important part of the whole ceremony, which took place at the
sacred grove. These rites will give a good idea of the old Roman
worship, and of the exactness with which Augustus sought to restore it.
At dawn the magister sacrificed two _porcae piaculares_ to the Dea, and
then a _vacca honoraria_, after which he laid aside the _toga praetexta_
or sacrificial vestment, and rested till noon, when all the brethren
partook of a common meal, of which the _porcae_ formed the chief part.
Then resuming the _praetexta_, and crowned with wreaths of corn-ears,
they proceeded to the altar in the grove, where they sacrificed the
_agna opima_, which was the principal victim in the whole
ceremonial.[922] Other rites followed, _e.g._ the passing round, from
one to another of the brethren, fruits gathered and consecrated on the
previous day, each brother receiving them in his left, _i.e._ lucky
hand, and passing them on with his right; and the singing of the famous
Arval hymn to Mars and the Lares to a rhythmic dance-tune. Then after
another meal and chariot-racing in the neighbouring circus, they
returned to Rome and finished the day with further feasting.[923] A
cynical reader of these Acta might suggest that the appetites of the
good brethren were made more of than their _pietas_; but the feasting
may be just as much a part of the ancient practice as any of the other
curiosities of ritual.
The utensils employed were of the primitive sun-baked clay (_ollae_),
and seem to have been regarded with a veneration almost amounting to
worship.[924] Long ago I had occasion to note how the old form of
piacular sacrifice was used and recorded whenever iron was taken into
the grove, or any damage done to the trees by lightning or other
accident. Once, when a tiny fig-tree sprouted on the roof of the temple,
piacula of all suitable kinds had to be offered to Mars, Dea Dia, Janus,
Jupiter, Juno, Virgines divae, Famuli divi, Lares, Mater Larum, sive
deus sive dea in cuius tutela hic lucus locusque est, Fons, Hora, Vesta
Mater, Vesta deorum dearumque, Adolenda Commolenda Deferunda,--and
sixteen _divi_ of the imperial families![925] As the date of this
extraordinary performance is A.D. 183, nothing can better show the
extent to which the revival of elaborate ritual had been carried by
Augustus, and the amazing tenacity with which it held its ground.
The second part of the activity of the brethren well illustrates the new
element which Augustus adroitly insinuated into the old religious forms:
but I shall not dwell upon it, for the worship of the Caesars in its
developed form is not of either Roman or Italian origin, any more than
the other kinds of cult which were now pressing in from the East; and it
thus lies outside the range of my subject. The revival of this old
priesthood, and doubtless of others, the Salii for example, was turned
to account to mark the sacred character and political and social
predominance of the imperial family. All events of importance in the
life of the Emperor himself and his family were the occasion of vows,
prayers, or thanksgivings on the part of the Fratres; births, marriages,
successions to the throne, journeys and safe return, and the assumption
of the consulship and other offices or priesthoods. These rites all took
place at various temples or altars in Rome, or at the Ara Pacis,
recently excavated, which Augustus had built in the Campus Martius.
Here, by way of example of them, is a "votum susceptum pro salute novi
principis," on his accession.[926]
"Imperatore M. Othone Caesare Augusto, L. Salvio Othone Titiano iterum
consulibus, III kalendas Februarias magistro Imperatore M. Othone
Caesare Augusto, promagistro L. Salvio Othone Titiano: collegi fratrum
Arvalium nomine immolavit in Capitolio ob vota nuncupata pro salute
imperatoris M. Othonis Caesaris Augusti in annum proximum in III nonas
Ianuarias Iovi bovem marem, Iunoni vaccam: Minervae vaccam: Saluti
publicae populi Romani vaccam: divo Augusto bovem marem, divae Augustae
vaccam: divo Claudio bovem marem: in collegio adfuerunt, etc."
This record, which belongs to the year 69 and the accession of Otho,
shows the _divi_, _i.e._ the deified emperors Augustus and Claudius,
together with the deified Livia, associated with the _trias_ of the
Capitoline temple and the _Salus publica_ in the sacrificial rites. But
under the Flavian dynasty which followed this association was
judiciously dropped.[927] It may serve for the moment to illustrate what
was to come of this new element so subtly introduced into the old
worship; how it led to practices which are utterly repulsive to us, and
repulsive too to an honest man even in that day. The noble words of
Tiberius, declining to have temples erected to him in Spain, have been
preserved by Tacitus from the senatorial records:[928] "Ego me, patres
conscripti, mortalem esse fateor"; and he added that his only claim to
immortality lay in the due performance of duty. Tiberius, whatever else
he may have been, was beyond doubt an honest man; and so too was Seneca,
the author of the famous skit on the deification of Claudius. But the
extravagances of Caesar-worship are not to be met with in Augustus'
time; for him the new element may be defined, as in Rome (and in Italy
too, so far as his own wish could limit it) nothing more than _the
encouragement of the belief in him, and loyalty to him as the restorer
of the pax deorum_. To this end he sought to magnify his own
achievements as avenger of the crime of the murder of Julius, by which
the _pax_ had been grievously disturbed. I propose to finish this
lecture by giving some account of the way in which he attained this
object. Let us briefly examine the famous ritual of the _Ludi
saeculares_, of which we have more detailed knowledge than of any other
Roman rite of any period; it marks the zenith of his prosperity and
religious activity, and belongs to the year 17 B.C., two years after the
death of Virgil,--a date which may be said to divide the long power of
Augustus into two nearly equal halves.
This famous celebration is an epoch in the history of the Roman
religion, if not in the history of Rome herself. It stands on the very
verge of an old and a new regime. It was the outward or ritualistic
expression of the idea, already suggested by Virgil in the fourth
_Eclogue_ and the _Aeneid_, that a regeneration is at hand of Rome and
Italy, in religion, morals, agriculture, government; old things are put
away, new sap is to run in the half-withered trunk and branches of a
noble tree. The experience of the past, as with Aeneas after the descent
into Hades, is to lead to new effort and a new type of character, of
which _pietas_ in its broadest sense is the inspiring motive.
Henceforward the Roman is to look ahead of him in hope and confidence,
_virtutem extendere factis_. Augustus, the Aeneas of the actual State,
was firmly established in a prestige which extended beyond Italy even to
the far East; his faithful and capable coadjutor Agrippa was by his side
to take his part in the ritual, and no cloud in that year 17 seemed to
be visible on the horizon.
The _Ludi saeculares_ are also unique in respect of the records we have
of them. By wonderful good fortune we can construct an almost complete
picture of what was done in that year on the last days of May and the
first three of June. We have the text of the Sibylline oracle,--how
manufactured we do not know, nor does it much matter,--which prescribed
the ritual, preserved by Zosimus, a Greek historian of the fifth century
A.D., together with his own account.[929] Thus the outline of the ritual
has been known all along, together with many details; and to help it out
we have also the perfect text of the hymn written by Horace for the
occasion, and sung by two choirs of boys and girls respectively. But
great was the delight of the learned world when, in September 1890,
workmen employed on the Tiber embankment, close, as it turned out, to
the spot where the nightly rites of the _ludi_ took place, came upon a
mediaeval wall partly made of ancient material, in which some marbles
were found covered with inscriptions relating to this same
celebration.[930] This treasure was badly mutilated, but the inscription
was easily decipherable; it contains a letter from Augustus giving
instructions, two decrees of the Senate, and a series of records of the
Quindecemviri, who were of course in charge of a ritual which had been
ordered by a Sibylline oracle. Some few points were at first puzzling,
but have been cleared up since the discovery. Mommsen, of course, took
the work in hand, and his exposition is still, and always will be, the
starting-point for students. Wissowa has an excellent popular account of
it, and recently, in the fifth volume of his _Greatness and Decline of
Rome_, Ferrero has utilised it to give an animated account of the whole
ceremony.[931]
The _Ludi saeculares_ take their name from the word _saeculum_; and the
old Italian idea of a _saeculum_ seems to have been a period stretching
from any given moment to the death of the oldest person born at that
moment,--a hundred years being the natural period so conceived.[932]
Thus a new saeculum might begin at any time, and might be endowed with
special religious significance by certain solemn ceremonies; in this way
the people might be persuaded that a new leaf, so to speak, had been
turned over in their history: that all past evil, material or moral, had
been put away and done with (_saeculum condere_), and a new period
entered on of innocence and prosperity. There are faint traces of three
early celebrations of this kind, beginning in 463 B.C., traditionally a
disastrous year, and renewed in 363 and 263. But in 249, another year of
distress and peril, a new saeculum was entered on with a new and a Greek
ritual, ordered by a Sibylline oracle. A subterranean altar in a spot
by the Tiber, near the present Ponte St. Angelo, and called Tarentum
(possibly to mark the original home of the rite), was dedicated to Dis
and Proserpina, Greek deities of the nether world; and here for three
successive nights black victims were offered to them. The subterranean
altar and the use of the word _condere_ (to put away), might suggest
that this rite may have had something in common with those well-known
quasi-dramatic ones in which objects are _buried_ or thrown into the
water, to represent the cessation of one period of vegetation and the
beginning of another.[933] Or we may look on it in the light of one of
those _rites de passage_ in which a transition is made from one state of
things to another, without any definite religious idea being attached to
it. There is no doubt some mystical element in the primitive idea of the
beginning and ending of periods of time, which has not as yet been
thoroughly investigated.[934]
Now it is easy to see how exactly a rite of this kind, with suitable
modifications, would fit in with Augustus' purposes as we have explained
them. Fortunately too Varro had in 42 B.C. published a book in which the
mystic or Pythagorean doctrine was set forth of the palingenesis of All
Souls after four saecula of 110 years each; the fourth _Eclogue_ of
Virgil may have been influenced by this, among other mystical ideas, as
it was written only three years later; and in any case the doctrine was
well known.[935] But Augustus had to wait a while, until peace and
confidence were restored. Why eventually he chose the year 17 is quite
uncertain; it does not exactly fit in with any calculation of four
saecula of 110 years starting from any known date. But a saeculum, as we
have seen, might begin at any moment; and in any case it was easy to
manufacture a calculation, which was now duly accomplished by trusty
persons, chief among them being the great lawyer, Ateius Capito, an
ardent adherent of Augustus and his projects.[936] Probably too it was
necessary to take advantage of the popular feeling of the moment, that a
better time had come, and that it should be started on its way in some
fitting outward form.
So an elaborate programme was drawn up, the main features of which I
must now explain. On 26th May and the two following days (for the mystic
numbers three, nine, and twenty-seven are noticeable throughout the
ritual)[937] the means of purification (_suffimenta_)--torches, sulphur,
bitumen[938]--were distributed by the priests to all free persons,
whether citizens or not; for this once, all in Rome at the time, with
the exception of slaves, were to give an imperial meaning to the
ceremony by their share in it. Even bachelors, though forbidden to
attend public shows under a recent law _de maritandis ordinibus_, were
allowed to do so on this occasion. No doubt the idea was that the whole
people were to be purified from all pollution of the past; it is what M.
van Gennep calls a _rite de separation_, the first step in a _rite de
passage_. The next three days all the people came to the Quindecemviri
at certain stated places, and made offerings of _fruges_, the products
of the earth, as we do at our harvest festivals; these were the
firstfruits of the coming harvest.[939] It may be worth while to recall
the facts that it was on these same days that the procession of the
Ambarvalia used to go round the ripening crops, and that in the early
days of June the symbolic _penus_ of Vesta was being cleansed to receive
the new grain.[940] That Augustus wished to emphasise the importance of
Italian agriculture is beyond doubt, and is apparent also in the hymn of
Horace, _Fertilis frugum pecorisque Tellus spicea donet Cererem corona,
etc._
When the _suffimenta_ had been distributed and the offerings made, all
was ready for the putting away or burying of the old _saeculum_. On the
night before 1st June Augustus himself, together with Agrippa,
sacrificed to the Greek Moirae, the Parcae of Horace's hymn, perhaps in
some sense the Fata of the _Aeneid_; on the second night to Eilithyia,
the Greek deity of childbirth; and on the third to Mother Tellus. The
form of prayer accompanying the sacrifice is preserved in the
inscription; it is Latin in language and form, as dry and concise as any
we examined in my lectures on ritual, and contains the _macte esto_
which I was then at pains to explain. Augustus prayed for the safety and
prosperity of the State in every way, and also for himself, his house,
and his familia.[941] The scene on the bank of the Tiber, illuminated by
torches, must have been most impressive.
These were the nightly ceremonies. But each day also had its ritual, in
which the Roman deities of the heaven were the objects of worship, not,
as by the Tiber bank, Greek deities of the earth and the nether world.
On the first two days Augustus and Agrippa offered the proper victims to
Jupiter and Juno respectively on the Capitol; Minerva is omitted, and
probably the other two are reckoned in Greek fashion as a married pair.
The form of prayer was the same as that used by night, with the
necessary modifications. Thus the great Capitoline temple and its
deities have a full share of attention, and they go too far who think
that Augustus was so wanting in tact as to put them in the shade.[942]
But on the third and last day the scene changes from the Capitol to the
Palatine, the residence of Augustus, where he had built his great temple
of Apollo; here for the first time in the ceremony Horace's hymn was
sung. On all the days and nights there had been shows and amusements,
and a hundred and ten chosen matrons had taken solemn part in the
services.[943] But I must pass these over and turn in the last place to
the question, as interesting as it is old and difficult, as to how and
where Horace's hymn was sung, and how we are to understand it.