APPENDIX II

EXCURSUS ON THE ROMAN RELIGION IN RELATION TO THE PRODIGIES

IN LIVY XXI. 62 AND XXII. 10'.

WE must turn to the Antiquarians of Rome, rather than to the historians or the poets, if we would learn the characteristic features of the old Italian Worship, for in later days they were so overlaid by the exotic growth of Greek religion that it was not easy to recognize their earlier forms.

The Latin husbandman was deeply impressed by the sense of his dependence on the powers of earth and sky: at every turn his path was crossed by some supernatural being on whose influence, whether kindly or malign, his weal or woe was subject. He analysed by cool reflection all the processes of daily life from the cradle to the grave, and for every incident within the family or social circle, for every detail of husbandry he found some guardian Power which he worshipped as divine. The names, harsh and uncouth as they may seem to us, carried their meaning on their face, and expressed the limits of the powers assigned; they were at first probably but Attributes of the One Great Unknown; the Jupiter or Divus pater, who moved in mysterious ways through Nature. The deities of Italy were never dressed up in human shapes by fancy, and artless hymns were the only forms of poetry which grew out of their worship. But the ritual needed for it was laborious and complex; all the details as gathered in the course of ages by tradition had to be punctiliously observed, else prayers and offerings were deemed null and void. In the family the house-father taught his children; in larger groups the brotherhoods (sodalicia) passed on from hand to hand the saving knowledge, while for the State priestly guilds (collegia), which never could die out, kept in their custody the sacred lore, which like the fire upon the city's hearth, burnt always with a steady flame. Of these, the College of the Pontiffs was even in the earliest age of Rome the supreme guardian of the State Religion. It scarcely dealt with the spiritual life of the family and smaller social groups; it left to others the purely ministerial functions of the priest; its duty was to guard, to harmonize, and to interpret the Public Code

1 Compare Bouché-Leclercq, Les Pontifes de l'Ancienne Rome; Preller, Römische Mythologie.

of Sacred Law. It knew the time-honoured methods by which each Power Divine must be approached; it alone had access to the ancient formularies of prayer, and all the nice rules of sacrificial usage. None but the Pontiffs could be trusted to draw up the Calendar from year to year, and determine all the questions of casuistry which were suggested by its fasts and feasts. For the worship of the Romans was full of Pharisaic scruples. The slightest deviation from old usage might vitiate a long round of ceremonial forms, and the whole service must begin afresh, or the jealous Power might withhold its favour. In Cato's work on Agriculture we find the author not content with rules of close economy and skilful farming; he must also add a sort of Liturgy or Common Prayer-Book for the use of the labourers upon the farm, and the rubrics, extracted as they doubtless were from the text-books of the Pontiffs, help to show us how laboriously painstaking was the temper of Roman worship. But with all its scrupulous care it could not but go wrong at times, the Sacred College therefore was called on to provide a remedial machinery to soothe the anger of the offended Powers. Was it a case merely of some ceremonial neglect? the mistake observed might be corrected, the faulty service be repeated (instaurare), the compensation made for the offence, and the expiation (piaculum) was held to be completed. This was indeed no absolution for a guilty conscience, for the forms prescribed dealt only with the outer act, and gave no promises of peace to minds diseased.

Often however no human eye had noted what was wrong, and it was left then for the gods to give their warnings through unearthly signs (prodigia). If the signs were given on private ground it rested with the owner of the land to set his house in order; but if the place was public ground, then the portent was a matter for the State (publicum prodigium), who must accept the charge (suscipere), and take the needful steps through her officials (procurare prod.) to satisfy the gods and set the public mind at rest. Here again was a wide field opened for the action of the Pontiffs. Others might shudder only in their ignorant panic, but they must learn to recognize the voice which spoke in portents, must turn over their old books and profit by the inductions of the past, must be ready, if they only could, to provide the state with their Authorized Version of God's Word to man. For this purpose, after due scrutiny of evidence, and rejection of the ill-attested (quia singuli auctores erant Livy v. 15. 1), the prodigies were chronicled with care from year to year in the priestly records, from which Livy drew so largely for his history. To isolate them from each other might mislead the student, rather they must be regarded as the scattered phrases of the message sent from

heaven, and skilled interpreters must piece them all together. Yet some recurring portents were met always with like forms of ceremonial (procuratio). A shower of stones called for a nine days' holiday, from the days of old king Tullus (mansit solemne ut quandoque idem prodigium nuntiaretur, feriæ per novem dies agerentur Livy 1. 31.3). If a bull was heard to speak with human sounds, a meeting of the Senate was called in open air (Pliny VIII. 70), in memory of the time perhaps when Latin farmers met among their herds to discuss in conclave the affairs of state.

When the scene of the portent was a shrine, or any clue was given to the Power which sent the warning, the College knew what offerings were likely to find favour, prescribed in some cases the hostia majores, the full-grown animals, confused in later days with the beasts of larger size, while in other cases they could tell that tender sucklings (hostia lactentes) would find most favour on the altars. Costly gifts could seldom come amiss, as tokens of the votaries' submission, so weighty offerings of gold or silver plate were stored up in the temple treasuries, or the choicest works of art in marble or in bronze were called in to represent the objects of popular gratitude or fear. In default of any special clue to the nature of the offence, or of the offended power, it might at least be well to have recourse to the ancient usage of lustration, to clear away the stains of possible pollution. The sin-offerings of the boar, the ram, the bull were duly made (suovetaurilia); the priestly train moved round the city walls (amburvium), or round the fields (ambarvalia), sprinkling the consecrated drops upon the bounds, and going through the long round of the traditional prayer, some passages of which Cato wrote out for like use among his country friends (De Re Rustica 141).

If the experience of the Pontifices was at fault, other advisers were called in. The haruspices especially were skilled in the Etruscan love of divination. They knew the language of the lightning, they could read strange characters scored upon the slaughtered victims, and to them therefore were referred the questions of the mysterious portents in the sky, or in animals of monstrous birth.

If the prodigies were fearful (tætra) and took the form of pestilence, or earthquake, or the like, and the need seemed very urgent, a newer fashion sometimes superseded the old machinery of the State Religion.

The Sibylline books had made their way to Rome, if we may trust tradition, as early as the period of the Tarquins. Borne to Rome by a wave of Hellenic influence which passed from the coast of Asia Minor along the Greek cities of Campania, the prophetic utterances gained a sanction from

the State, and a College of Interpreters to unfold or to apply their meaning (decemviri sacris faciundis). The frugal Senate was chary indeed of such appeals, for experience had proved that the Sibyll sold her advice dearly, and never spared the public purse. Now she recommended a costly deputation to beg some foreign deity to consent to house himself in Rome; sometimes a new temple must be built to lodge more worthily a recent visitor from Olympus; sometimes stately ceremonies might be enough if they were only of the newest fashion, but in each case we may note that some forward steps were taken in naturalizing the Greek Pantheon on Italian soil. So one after another the familiar forms of Greek mythology were recognized in the religion of the State, sometimes thinly disguised in Latin dress, more often with names and attributes almost unchanged, while the arrival of each upon the scene was marked by some enduring festival or shrine. To the same source may also be assigned the imposing ceremonies which were for the most part of foreign growth.

The lectisternium, first heard of in the year 399 B. C., (Livy v. 13. 6,) but often repeated later, agreed with some features of old Latin usage, but was specially connected with the characteristic forms of the Apollo-worship (Theoxenia). All was made ready for a costly banquet, and on each couch (pulvinaria) were laid the symbols of the deities to be appeased, while the viands from the feast, or offerings from the altars, were laid in solemn state before them. With these were commonly connected supplicationes, a form of General Litany or Processional Service, in which young and old, citizens and country folks, moved in long lines through all the streets to offer prayers in every temple where the pulvinaria were laid out to view. These in their details, as also in the occasions when we hear of them, remind us of the solemn Pæans by which Apollo was approached in times of thanksgiving or intercession. The Sibylline books did not fail also to encourage the system of vows (vota) which Roman usage had long sanctioned. Often in the crisis of the battle, or some time of urgent risk, magistrates had promised temples or costly offerings to their guardian powers, if only the tide of danger would be rolled away. And so when prodigies were rife, and panic spread, the advisers of the State appealed to the efficacy of solemn vows. One such may seem to call for special mention, as recorded in archaic language by the historian of the 2nd Punic war.

It had been an old Italian custom to promise to the gods in times of crisis the produce of the coming spring (ver sacrum), and the custom may have dated from the days of human sacrifice. For among the earliest stories of tribal movements in Central Italy, we read that in days of famine

such a ver sacrum had been vowed among the Sabine hills, and that when the young of that spring reached man's estate they were sent forth in search of some new homes, and that guided on their several paths by animals sacred to the Italian Mars, they made their way into Samnium and Picenum, and to other lands, where they accepted henceforth as their national symbols, the bull in Samnium, the woodpecker (picus) in Picenum, and the wolf for the Hirpini, whose forefathers had been led by it to their new homes. In the case above referred to the senate gave its sanction to the vow, but the Chief Pontiff was aware that ancient usage required the consent of the whole people, and a bill was drawn up by his instructions, to be submitted to the vote in the comitia. It was drawn up with scrupulous care that no little flaw, or unforeseen neglect, might vitiate the people's form of intercession, and indeed it was expressly stipulated that no sacrifice should lose its value if offered unwittingly upon a day of evil omen (si atro die faxit insciens).

APPENDIX III.

ON THE CHARACTER OF C. FLAMINIUS.

Ir is commonly believed that the memory of Flaminius has suffered grievous wrong from the hatred of the nobles of his day, which is reflected even in the narrative of Livy, and it may therefore be convenient to put together the little that is definitely told us of his life and doings. He came of a plebeian family, which had won as yet no curule honours, and he showed as tribune that he had the interests of the poorer citizens at heart. As a partial remedy for the economic evils of his times he proposed in an agrarian bill—the first after the Licinian laws to divide among the needy much of the state domain available in Cisalpine Gaul (B. c. 231). The nobles in the senate stoutly opposed the measure, which was carried through the comitia in spite of their resistance.

The sanction of the senate was not technically needed to give a plebiscitum force of law, and the egotism of the governing classes may have justified this bold innovation of Flaminius, but it was a violent blow against the representative power in the state, and as such was noted by Polybius (II. 21) as the first ominous sign of constitutional decline. The aristocracy submitted with ill grace, and hampered him in his work of colonial distribution with ineffectual delays. Shortly after