The Religion of Ancient Rome Part 2

[9] Ov., _Fast._, iv. 735.

CHAPTER VII

WORSHIP OF THE STATE

Since, in the matter of religion, the Roman state is in the main but the agricultural household magnified, we shall not, in considering its worship, be entering on a new stratum of ideas, but rather looking at the development of notions and sentiments already familiar. To deal, however, with the state-worship in full would not only far exceed the limits of this sketch, but would lead us away from religious ideas into the region of what we might now call 'ecclesiastical management.' I propose therefore to confine myself to two points, firstly, the broadening of the old conceptions of the household and the fields and their adaptation to the life of the state, and secondly--to be treated very shortly and as an indication of the Roman character--the organisation of religion.

=1. Development of the Worship of House and Fields.=--Here we shall find two main characteristics. The state in the first place, as we have several times hinted in antic.i.p.ation, establishes its own counterpart of the household and rustic cults and adapts to its own use the ideas which they involve: in the second, and particularly in connection with some of the field-deities, it evolves new and very frequently abstract notions, foreign to the life of the independent country households, but necessary and vital to the life of an organised community. Let us look first at the fate of the household deities.

=Ia.n.u.s.=--We left Ia.n.u.s as the _numen_ of the house-door: he pa.s.ses into the state exactly in the same capacity: the state too has its 'door,' the gate at the north-east corner of the Forum, and this becomes the seat of his state-cult--the door which, according to Augustan legend, is opened in the time of war and only shut when Rome is at peace with all the world. But reflection soon gets to work on Ia.n.u.s: a door has two sides, it can both open and shut; therefore, as early as the song of the Salii, he has developed the cult-epithets 'Opener,' 'Shutter' (_Patulci_, _Cloesi_), and as soon as he is thought of as anything approaching a personality he is 'two-headed'

(_bifrons_), as he appears in later representations. The door again is the first thing you come to in entering a house: the 'door-spirit'

then, with that tendency to abstraction which we shall see shortly in other cases, becomes the G.o.d of beginnings. He watches over the very first beginning of human life in his character of _Consevius_; to him is sacred the first hour of the day (_pater matutinus_), the Calends of every month, and the first month of the year (_Ianuarius_); to him too is offered by the _rex sacrorum_ the first sacrifice of the year, the Agonium on the 9th of January. In this capacity, moreover, his name comes first in all the formulae of prayer, and he is looked upon--not indeed as the father of the G.o.ds--for that is a much too anthropomorphic notion--but as what we might now term their 'logical antecedent': _divum deus_, as the song of the Salii quaintly puts it, _principium deorum_, as later interpretation explained it. Yet through all he remains the most typical Roman deity: he does not acquire a temple till 217 B.C., nor a bust until quite late, nor is he ever identified with a Greek counterpart. In his capacity as _pater matutinus_ he has a native female counterpart in Matuta, a dawn-deity, who becomes a protectress in childbirth, and as such is the centre of the matrons' festival, the Matralia of June 11.

=Vesta.=--The history of Vesta is perhaps less romantic, but it affords a more exact parallel between household and state. In the primitive community the king's hearth is not merely of symbolical importance, but of great practical utility, in that it is kept continually burning as the source of fire on which the individual householder may draw: hence it is the duty of the king's daughters to care for it and keep the flame perpetually alight. In Rome the temple of Vesta is the king's hearth, situated, as one would expect, in close proximity to the _regia_. The fire is kept continually blazing except on the 1st of March of every year, when it is allowed to go out and is ceremonially renewed. The Vestal virgins, sworn to perpetual virginity and charged with the preservation of the sacred flame, are 'the king's daughters,'

living in a kind of convent (_atrium Vestae_) and under the charge of the king's representative, the _pontifex maximus_. It is their duty too, as the natural cooks of the sacred royal household, to make the salt cake (_mola salsa_) to be used at the year's festivals and to preserve it and other sacred objects, such as the ashes of the Fordicidia, in the storehouse of Vesta (_penus Vestae_). In the month of June from the 7th to the 15th, with a climax on the 9th, the day of the Vestalia, the matrons who all the year round have tended their own hearths, come in solemn procession bare-footed to make their homely offerings at the state-hearth, and the virgins meanwhile offer the cakes that they have made. For eight days the ceremony continues, during which time the bakers and millers keep holiday; the days are _religiosi_ (marriages are unlucky and other taboos are observed) and also _nefasti_ (no public business may be performed); until the ceremony closes on the 15th, with the solemn cleansing of the temple and the casting of the refuse into the Tiber, and then the normal life of the state may be renewed--Q. St. D. F. (_Quando Stercus Delatum Fas_) is the unique entry in the Calendars. This is all less imaginative than the development of Ia.n.u.s, but the underlying feeling is intensely Roman and there could be no clearer idea of the natural adaptation of the household-cult to the religion of the state.

=Penates, Lares, and Genius.=--The other household deities too have their counterpart, though not so prominently marked, in the worship of the state. The magistrates, on entering office, took oath by Iuppiter and the _Di Penates populi Romani Quiritium_, and that the conception was as wide in the state as in the household is shown by the fact that on less formal occasions the formula appears as _Iuppiter et ceteri di omnes immortales_. The Penates of the state then would include all the state-deities; but that their original character is not lost sight of we can see from the statement of Varro that in the _penus Vestae_ (the 'state storehouse') were preserved their _sigilla_--not apparently sensuous representations, but symbolic objects, such as we have seen before in cases like that of the _silex_ of Iuppiter. The _Lares_ again find their counterpart in the _Lares Praest.i.tes_ of the state, and their rustic festival, the Compitalia, has its urban reproduction, which, as it involved considerable license on the part of populace and slaves, was often in the later period of the Republic a cause of serious political disturbance. Even the Genius, though rather vaguely, pa.s.ses over to the state and we hear of the _Genius populi Romani_ or the _Genius urbis Romae_, with regard to which Servius quotes from an inscription on a shield the characteristic addition, _sive mas sive femina_: in much later times we find the exact counterpart of the domestic worship of the Genius of the _pater familias_ in the cult of the Genius of the Emperor--the foundation of the whole of the imperial worship.

We have observed already how the cults of the fields were taken over by the state and their counterparts established in the great festivals of the Calendar. Naturally enough most of the deities concerned, existing only for the part they played in these festivals, retained their original character without further development. But with a few it was different: it was their fate to acquire new characteristics and new functions, and, developing with the needs of the community, to become the great G.o.ds of the state: of these we must give some brief account.

=Iuppiter.=--We have known Iuppiter hitherto either in connection with certain very primitive survivals, or in the genuine Roman period as a sky-_numen_, concerned with the grape-harvest in the two Vinalia and the Meditrinalia, and the recipient at the family meal of a _daps_ as a general propitiation before the beginning of the sowing. As sky-G.o.d he pa.s.ses to the state: _Lucetius_ (_lux_) is his t.i.tle in the song of the Salii and to him are sacred the Ides of every month--the time of the full moon, when there is most light in the heavens by night as well as day. In his agricultural connection he has his wine-festivals in the state as in the country, and the household _daps_ becomes the more elaborate _epulum Iovis_, in which the whole community, as it were, entertained him at a banquet. As a sky-deity, too, he is particularly concerned with the thunderbolt and the lightning-flash (_Iuppiter Fulmen_, _Fulgur_), and to him are sacred the always ominous spots which had been struck by lightning (_bidentalia_): with the more alarming occurrence of lightning by night he has a special connection under the cult-t.i.tle _Iuppiter Summa.n.u.s_. But as the little community grew, and especially perhaps after the union of the two settlements, the worship of Iuppiter Feretrius, a.s.sociated with the sacred oak upon the Capitol--the hill between Palatine and Quirinal--comes more and more into prominence as a bond of union and the central point of the state's religious life: it tends indeed to take the place of priority, which had previously been occupied by Ia.n.u.s. The community goes to war with its neighbours, and after a signal victory the _spolia opima_ must be dedicated on the sacred oak: indeed Iuppiter is in a special sense with them in the battle and must now be worshipped as the 'stayer of rout' (_Stator_) and the 'giver of victory' (_Victor_). War is a new province of the state's activity, but, characteristically enough, it does not evolve its own _numen_, but enlarges the sphere of the somewhat elastic spirits already existing. So too in the internal organisation of the state there is felt the need of a religious sanction for public morality, and Iuppiter--though vaguely at first--takes on him the character of a deity of justice. In this connection he is primarily the G.o.d of oaths: we have seen how his sacred _silex_ was used in the oath of treaty: it is also the most solemn witness to the oath of the citizen. Iuppiter Lapis becomes specially the Dius Fidius, a cult-t.i.tle which subsequently sets up for itself and produces a further offshoot in the abstract Fides. Finally, towards the end of our period the Iuppiter of the Capitol emerges triumphant, as it were, from his struggle with his rivals and, with the new t.i.tle of Iuppiter Optimus Maximus,--the 'best and greatest,' that is, of all the Iuppiters--takes his place as the supreme deity of the Roman state and the personification of the greatness and majesty of Rome itself. To his temple hereafter the Roman youth will come to make his offering when he takes the dress of manhood; here the magistrates will do sacrifice before entering on their year of office: here the victorious general will pa.s.s in procession with the spoils of his victory: on the walls shall be suspended treaties with foreign nations and offerings sent by subject princes and states from all quarters of the world: all that Rome is to be, will be, as it were, embodied in the sky-spirit of the sacred oak, the G.o.d of justice and of victory in war.

=Iuno.=--Iuppiter carries with him into the state-worship his female counterpart, Iuno, with his own characteristics, in a certain degree, and his own privileges. She is Lucina and Fulgura as he is Lucetius and Fulgur: white cows are her offerings as white steers are his: as the Ides are sacred to Iuppiter, so--though they are not a festival--are the Calends to Iuno. But from the first she shows a certain independence and develops on lines of her own. In the curious ceremony of the fixing of the Nones (the first quarter of the month), held on the Calends in the _curia Calabra_, she seems to appear as a moon-G.o.ddess: the _rex sacrorum_, after a report from a _pontifex_ as to the appearance of the new moon, announces the result in the formula: 'I summon thee for five (or seven) days, hollow Iuno' (_dies te quinque_ [_septem_] _kalo, Iuno Covella_: hence the name _Kalendae_).

But far more prominently--either as a female divinity herself, or, as some think, owing to the supposed influence of the moon on female life--does Iuno figure as the deity of women, and especially in a.s.sociation with childbirth and marriage. As _Lucina_ she is, as we have seen, the presiding deity of childbirth, and her festival on the 1st of March, though not in the Calendars (because confined to women and not therefore a festival of the whole people), attained immense popularity under the t.i.tle of the Matronalia. She has too a general superintendence of the rites of marriage, and the various little _numina_, who play so prominent a part in the ceremonies, tend to attach themselves to her as cult-t.i.tles. The festival of the servant-maids in honour of Iuno Caprotina on the 7th of July shows the same notion of Iuno as the women's G.o.ddess, which appears again in common parlance when women speak of their Iuno, just as men do of their Genius. Later on Iuno acquires the characteristics of majesty (_Regina_) and protection in war (_Curitis_, _Sospita_), partly no doubt as Iuppiter's counterpart, but more directly through the introduction of cults from neighbouring Italian towns.

=Mars.=--We have seen reason to believe that in the earlier stages of Roman religion Mars was a _numen_ of vegetation, but though the Ambarvalia was duly taken over into the state-cult and attained a very high degree of importance, yet there can be no doubt that in the state-religion Mars was pre-eminently a.s.sociated with war. Iuppiter might help at need in averting defeat and awarding victory, but it was with Mars that the general conduct of war rested. His sacred animal is the warlike wolf, his symbols the spears and the sacred shields (_ancilia_), which during his own month (_Martius_)--the 1st of which is his special festival--his priests (_Salii_) wearing the full war-dress (_trabea_ and _tunica picta_) carry with sacred dance and song round the city. His altar is in the Campus Martius, outside the city-walls and therefore within the sphere of the _imperium militiae_, and the other festivals a.s.sociated with him are of a warlike character: the races of the war-horse (Equirria) on March 14 and February 27, and the great race on the Ides of October, when the winner was solemnly slain: the l.u.s.tration of the arms at the Quinquatrus on March 19 and the Armil.u.s.trium of October 19--at the beginning and end of the campaigning season: and the l.u.s.tration of the war-trumpets on the 23rd of March and the 23rd of May. But above all in honour of Mars is held the great quinquennial _l.u.s.trum_ a.s.sociated with the census, when the people are drawn up in military array around his altar in the Campus Martius and the solemn offering of the _suovetaurilia_ (is this a faint relic of his agricultural character?) after being carried three times round the gathered host, is offered on his altar in prayer for the military future of the state. Hardly any G.o.d in the state-cult has his character so clearly marked, and we may regard Mars as a deity who, taking on new functions to suit the needs of the times, almost entirely lost the traces of his original nature.

=Quirinus.=--Iuppiter and Mars then became the great state-deities of the developed community and to them is added, as the contribution of the Colline settlement, their own particular deity, Quirinus. He, like them, has his own _flamen_; like Mars he has his _Salii_, and his festival finds its place in the Calendars on February the 17th. But of his ritual and character we know practically nothing: the ritual was obscured because his festival coincided with the much more popular festival of the _curiae_, the _stultorum feriae_: of his character, we can only conjecture that he was to the Colline settlement what Mars was to the Palatine, whereas later after the complete amalgamation he seems to have been distinguished from Mars as representing 'armed peace'

rather than war--an idea which is borne out by the a.s.sociations of the closely allied word _Quirites_. Be that as it may, we have in Iuppiter, Mars, and Quirinus the great state-triad of the synoecismus, who held their own until at the beginning of the next epoch they were supplanted by the new Etruscan triad of the Capitol, Iuppiter, Iuno and Minerva.

=2. Organisation.=--It might perhaps be thought that the organisation of religion is a matter remote from its spirit, and is not therefore a suitable subject for discussion, where the object is rather to bring out underlying motives and ideas: but in dealing with the Roman religion, where ceremonial and legal precision were so prominent, it would be even misleading to omit some reference to the very characteristic manner in which the state, taking over the rather chaotic elements of the agricultural worship, organised them into something like a consistent whole. Its most complete achievement in this direction was without doubt the regulation of the religious year.

We have spoken many times of the Calendars (_Fasti_): it is necessary now to obtain some clearer notion of what they were. In Rome itself and various Italian towns have been found some thirty inscriptions, one almost complete (Maffeiani), the others more or less fragmentary, giving the tables of the months and marking precisely the character and occurrences of every day in the year. We may take as a specimen the latter half of the month of August from the Fasti Maffeiani.

A. EID. [NP]. | C. VOLC. [NP].

B. F. | D. C.

C. C. | E. OPIC. [NP].

D. C. | F. C.

E. PORT. [NP]. | G. VOLT. [NP].

F. C. | H. [NP].

G. VIN. F.P. | A. F.

H. C. | B. F.

A. CONS. [NP]. | C. C.

B. EN. |

In the first column are given the nundinal letters of the days, showing their position in the eight days' 'week' from one market day (_nundinae_) to the next. In the second column are noted first the great divisions of the month, Calends, Nones, and Ides, and then the religious character of each individual day is indicated by certain signs, whose explanations throw a good deal of light on Roman religions notions. It will be seen that the letters of most frequent occurrence are F, C, and N (or in our extract [NP]): these correspond to the broad distinction between days profane and sacred. F (_fastus_) denotes a day on which the business of the state may be performed, on which the praetor may say (_fari_) the three words, _do_, _dico_, _addico_, which summed up the decisions of the Roman law: C (_comitialis_) marks a day on which the legislative a.s.semblies (_comitia_) may be held: it is by implication F as well. N (_nefastus_), on the other hand, denotes the sacred day, consecrated to the worship of the G.o.ds, on which therefore state-business may not be transacted: similarly the very mysterious and much disputed sign [NP], whether it differs in precise signification from N or not, certainly marks a day of sacred character. EN, which occurs once in this extract (from _endotercisus_, the old Latin form of _intercisus_) signifies a 'split' day (_dies fissus_), the beginning and end of which were sacred, while the middle period was free for business. In the second column also (in large letters in some of the other Calendars) are named the _feriae publicae_, the great annual state-festivals, fixed for one particular day (_feriae stativae_): such, in this case, are the Portunalia, Vinalia, and Consualia.

These _fasti_ were exhibited in the Forum and on the walls of temples, and the conscientious Roman could have no possible difficulty in finding out when he might lawfully transact his business and what festivals the state was observing: of the 355 days of the old Calendar 11 were _fissi_, 235 were _fasti_ (192 _comitiales_), and 109 _nefasti_. We may remark as curious features in the Calendar, denoting rigid adherence to principle, that with one exception, the Poplifugia of July 5, no festival ever occurs before the Nones, that with two exceptions, the Regifugium of February 24 and the Equirria of the 14th of March, no festival falls on an even day of the month, and that there is a marked avoidance of successive feast-days: even the three days of the Lemuria allow an interval of a day between each.

In the matter of ritual and observance, state-organisation--and its absence--are alike significant. Of the general exactness of ritual and its specific variations on different occasions a fair notion has perhaps already been gathered; it may help to fill out that notion if we can put together a sketch of the normal process of a sacrifice to the G.o.ds. Before the sacrifice began the animal to be offered was selected and tested: if it had any blemish or showed any reluctance, it was rejected. If it were whole and willing, it was bound with fillets (_infulae_) around its forehead, and long ribbons (_vittae_) depending from them. It was then brought to the altar (_ara_) by the side of which stood a portable brazier (_foculus_). The celebrant--magistrate or priest--next approached dressed in the _toga_, girt about him in a peculiar manner (_cinctus Gabinus_), and carried up at the back so as to form a hood (_velato capite_): the herald proclaimed silence, and the flute-player began to play his instrument. The first part of the offering was then made by the pouring of wine and scattering of incense on the brazier: it was followed by the ceremonial slaughter (_immolatio_) of the animal. The celebrant sprinkled the victim with wine and salted cake, and made a symbolic gesture with the knife. The victim was then taken aside by the attendants (_victimarii_), and actually slaughtered by them: from it they extracted the sacred parts (_exta_), liver, heart, gall, lungs, and midriff, and after inspecting them to see that they had no abnormality--but not in the earlier period for purposes of augury--wrapped them in pieces of flesh (_augmenta_), cooked them, and brought them back to the celebrant, who laid them as an offering upon the altar, where they were burnt. The rest of the flesh (_viscera_) was divided as a sacred meal between the celebrant and his friends--or in a state-offering among the priests, and probably the magistrate. We cannot refrain from remarking here the extreme precision of ritual, the scrupulous care with which the human side of the contract was fulfilled and the--almost legal--division of the victim between G.o.ds and men. But though the ritual was so exact, one must not be led away by modern a.n.a.logies to suppose that there was ever anything like a rigid constraint on the private citizen for the observance of festivals. The state-festivals were in the strictest sense offerings made to the G.o.ds by the representative magistrates or priests, and if they were present, all was done that was required: the whole people had been, by a legal fiction, present in their persons. No doubt the private citizen would often attend in large numbers at the celebrations, especially at the more popular festivals, but from some, such as the Vestalia, he was actually excluded. On the other hand, though it did not demand presence, the state did--at least theoretically--demand the observance of the feast-day by private individuals. The root-notion of _feriae_ was a day set apart for the worship of the G.o.ds, and on it therefore the citizen ought to do 'no manner of work.' The state observed this condition fully in the closing of law-courts and the absence of legislative a.s.semblies, and in theory too the private citizen must refrain from any act which was not concerned with the worship of the G.o.ds, or rendered absolutely necessary, as, for instance, if 'his ox or his a.s.s should fall into a pit.' But it is characteristic of Rome that the state did not seek for offence, but only punished it if accidentally seen: on a feast-day the _rex sacrorum_ and the _flamines_ might not see work being done; they therefore sent on a herald in advance to announce their presence, and an actual conviction involved a money-fine. Perhaps more scrupulously than the _feriae_ were observed the _dies religiosi_, days of 'abstinence,' on which certain acts, such as marriage, the beginning of any new piece of work, or the offering of sacrifice to the G.o.ds, were forbidden: such, in the oldest period, were the days on which the _mundus_ was open, or the temple of Vesta received the matrons, the days when the Salii carried the _ancilia_ in procession, and the periods of the two festivals of the dead in February and May; but for eluding their observance too devices were not unknown.

In the state-organisation of religion, then, we seem to see just the same features from which we started: as a basis the legal conception of the relation of G.o.d to man, as a result the extreme care and precision in times and ceremonials, as a corollary in the state the idea of legal representation and the consequent looseness of hold on the action of the individual.

CHAPTER VIII

AUGURIES AND AUSPICES

So far we have been considering the regular relations of man and G.o.d, seen in recurring or special offerings, in vows and in acts of purification and l.u.s.tration--all based on the contract-notion, all endeavours on man's part to fulfil his bounden duty, that the G.o.ds may be constrained in turn to theirs. But so strong was the feeling of divine presence and influence in the Roman's mind, that he was not content with doing his best by these regular means to secure the favour of the G.o.ds, but wished before undertaking any business of importance to be able to a.s.sure himself of their approval. His practical common-sense evolved, as it were, a complete 'code'--in the flight and song of birds, in the direction of the lightning-flash, in the conduct of men and animals--by which he believed that the G.o.ds communicated to him their intentions: sometimes these indications (_auspicia_) might be vouchsafed by the G.o.ds unasked (_oblativa_), sometimes they would be given in answer to request (_impetrativa_): but as to their meaning, there could be no doubt, provided they were interpreted by one skilled in the lore and tradition of augury. We may observe here, though our evidence is much slighter, the same three stages which we have noticed in the sacrificial worship, the homely domestic auspices, the auguries of the agricultural life, and the organised system in the state.

In the household the use of auspices was in origin at any rate very general indeed: 'Nothing,' Cicero tells us, 'of importance used to be undertaken unless with the sanction of the auspices' (_auspicato_). The right of interrogating the will of the G.o.ds, rested, as one might expect, with the master of the house, a.s.sisted no doubt by the private augur as the repository of lore and the interpreter of what the master saw. But of the details of domestic augury we know but little. Cato in one pa.s.sage insists on the extreme importance of silence for the purpose, and Festus suggests that this was secured by the master of the house rising in the depths of the night to inspect the heavens. We have seen already that the taking of the auspices played an important part in the ceremonies of betrothal and marriage, and that the indications of the divine will might be very varied we may gather from a story in Cicero. An aunt wishing to take the auspices for her niece's betrothal, conducted her into an open consecrated s.p.a.ce (_sacellum_) and sat down on the stool of augury (_sella_) with her niece standing at her side.

After a while the girl tired and asked her aunt to give her a little of the stool: the aunt replied, 'My child, I give up my seat to you': nothing further happened and this answer turned out in fact to be the auspicious sign: the aunt died, the niece married the widower and so became mistress of the house.

Of augury in agricultural life we have some indication in the annual observance of the 'spring augury' (_augurium verniserum_) and the midsummer ceremony of the _augurium canarium_, which seems to have been a combination of the offering of a red dog (possibly to avert mildew) and an augury for the success of the crops. To the rustic stratum possibly belongs also the _augurium salutis populi_, though later it was a yearly act celebrated whenever the Roman army was not at war and so became connected with the shutting of the temple of Ia.n.u.s.

The state greatly developed and organised the whole system of auguries and auspices. The college of augurs ranked second only in importance to the pontifical college, and their duties with regard to both augury and auspice are sufficiently clear. Like the _pontifices_ in relation to cult, they are the storehouse of all tradition, and to them appeal may be made in all cases of doubt both public and private: they were jealous of their secrets and in later times their mutual consciousness of deception became proverbial. The right of augury--in origin simply the inspection of the heavens--was theirs alone, and it was exercised particularly on the annual occasions mentioned and at the installation of priests, of which we get a typical instance in Livy's account of the consecration of Numa.

The auspices on the other hand--in origin 'signs from birds' (_avis_, _spicere_)--were the province of the magistrate about to undertake some definite action on behalf of the state whether at home or on the field of battle. Here the augur's functions were merely preparatory and advisory. It was his duty to prepare the _templum_, the spot from which the auspices are to be taken--always a square s.p.a.ce, with boundaries unbroken except at the entrance, not surrounded by wall or necessarily by line, but clearly indicated (_effatus_) by the augur, and marked off (_liberatus_) from the surroundings: in the comitia and other places in Rome there were permanent _templa_, but elsewhere they must be specially made. The magistrate then enters the _templum_ and observes the signs (_spectio_): if there is any doubt as to interpretation--and seeing the immense complication of the traditions (_disciplina_), this must often have been the case--the augur is referred to as interpreter.

The signs demanded (_impetrativa_) were originally always connected with the appearance, song or flight of birds--higher or lower, from left to right or right to left, etc. Later others were included, and with the army in the field it became the regular practice to take the auspices from the feeding of the sacred chickens (_pulli_): the best sign being obtained if, in their eagerness to feed, they let fall some of the grain from their beaks (_tripudium solistimum_)--a result not difficult to secure by previous treatment and a careful selection of the kind of grain supplied to them. But besides this deliberate 'asking for signs,' public business might at any moment be interrupted if the G.o.ds voluntarily sent an indication of disapproval (_oblativa_): the augurs then had always to be at hand to advise the magistrates whether notice should be taken of such signs, and, if so, what was their signification, and they even seem to have had certain rights of reporting themselves (_nuntiatio_) the occurrence of adverse ones. The sign of most usual occurrence would be lightning--sometimes such an unexpected event as the seizure of a member of the a.s.sembly with epilepsy (_morbus comitialis_)--and we know to what lengths political obstructionists went in later times in the observation of fict.i.tious signs, or even the prevention of business by the mere announcement of their intention to see an unfavourable omen (_servare de caelo_). The complications and ramifications of the augur's art are infinite, but the main idea should by now be plain, and it must be remembered that the kindred art of the soothsayer (_haruspex_), oracles, and the interpretation of fate by the drawing of lots (_sortes_) are all later foreign introductions: auspice and augury are the only genuine Roman methods for interpreting the will of the G.o.ds.

Here then in household, fields, and state, we have a second type of relation to the G.o.ds, running parallel to the ordinary practice of sacrifice and prayer, distinct yet not fundamentally different. As it is man's function to propitiate the higher spirits and prevent, if possible, the wrecking of his plans by their opposition, so it is his business, if he can, to find out their intentions before he engages on any serious undertaking. As in the _ius sacrum_ his legal mind leads him to a.s.sume that the deities accept the responsibility of the contract, when his own part is fulfilled, so here, like a practical man of business, he a.s.sumes their construction of a code of communication, which he has learned to interpret. In its origin it is a notion common to many primitive religions, but in its elaboration it is peculiarly and distinctively Italian, and, as we know it, Roman.

CHAPTER IX

RELIGION AND MORALITY--CONCLUSION

It might be said that a religion--the expression of man's relation to the unseen--has not necessarily any connection with morality--man's action in himself and towards his neighbours: that an individual--or even a nation--might perfectly fulfil the duties imposed by the 'powers above,' without being influenced in conduct and character. Such a view might seem to find an apt ill.u.s.tration in the religion of Rome: the ceremonial _pietas_ towards the G.o.ds appears to have little to do with the making of man or nation. But in the history of the world the test of religions must be their effect on the character of those who believed in them: religion is no doubt itself an outcome of character, but it reacts upon it, and must either strengthen or weaken. We are not therefore justified in dismissing the 'Religion of Numa' without inquiry as to its relation to morality, for on our answer to that question must largely depend our judgment as to its value.

We are of course in a peculiarly difficult position to grapple with this problem through lack of contemporary evidence. The Rome we know, in the epochs when we can fairly judge of character and morality, was not the Rome in which the 'Religion of Numa' had grown up and remained unquestioned: it had been overlaid with foreign cults and foreign ideas, had been used by priests and magistrates as a political instrument, and discounted among the educated through the influence of philosophy. But we may remember in the first place that even then, especially in the household and in the country, the old religion had probably a much firmer hold than one might imagine from literary evidence, in the second that national character is not the growth of a day, so that we may safely refer permanent characteristics to the period when the old religion held its own.

It may be admitted at once that the direct influence on morality was very small indeed. There was no table of commandments backed by the religious sanction: the sense of 'sin,' except through breach of ritual, was practically unknown. It is true that in the very early _leges regiae_ some notion of this kind is seen--a significant glimpse of what the original relation may have been: it is there ordained that the patron who betrayed his client, or the client who deceived his patron, shall be condemned to Iuppiter; the parricide to the spirits of his dead ancestors, the husband who sells his wife to the G.o.ds of the underworld, the man who removes his neighbour's landmark to Terminus, the stealer of corn to Ceres. All these persons shall be _sacri_: they have offended against the G.o.ds and the G.o.ds will see to their punishment. But these are old-world notions which soon pa.s.sed into the background and the state took over the punishment of such offenders in the ordinary course of law. Nor again in the prayers of men to G.o.ds is there a trace of a pet.i.tion for moral blessings: the magistrate prays for the success and prosperity of the state, the farmer for the fertility of his crops and herds, even the private individual, who suspends his votive-tablet in the temple, pays his due for health or commercial success vouchsafed to himself or his relations. 'Men call Iuppiter greatest and best,' says Cicero, 'because he makes us not just or temperate or wise, but sound and healthy and rich and wealthy.'

Still less, until we come to the moralists of the Empire, is there any sense of that immediate and personal relation of the individual to a higher being, which is really in religion, far more than commandments and ordinances, the mainspring and safeguard of morality: even the conception of the Genius, the 'nearest' perhaps of all unseen powers, had nothing of this feeling in it, and it may be significant that, just because of his nearness to man, the Genius never quite attained to G.o.d-head. As far as direct relation is concerned, religion and morality were to the Roman two independent spheres with a very small point of contact.

Nor even in its indirect influence does the formal observance of the Roman worship seem likely at first sight to have done much for personal or national morality. Based upon fear, stereotyped in the form of a legal relationship, _religio_--'the bounden obligation'--made, no doubt, for a kind of conscientiousness in its adherents, but a cold conscientiousness, devoid of emotion and incapable of expanding itself to include other spheres or prompt to a similar scrupulousness in other relations. The rigid and constant distinction of sacred and profane would incline the Roman to fulfil the routine of his religious duty and then turn, almost with a sigh of relief, to the occupations of normal life, carrying with him nothing more than the sense of a burden laid aside and a pledge of external prosperity. Even the religious act itself might be without moral significance: as we have seen, the worshipper might be wholly ignorant of the character, even the name of the deity he worshipped, and in any case the motive of his action was naught, the act itself everything. Nor again had the Roman religion any trace of that powerful incentive to morality, a doctrine of rewards and punishments in a future life: the ideas as to the fate of the dead were fluctuating and vague, and the Roman was in any case much more interested in their influence on himself than in their possible experiences after death.

The divorce then between religion and morality seems almost complete and it is not strange that most modern writers speak of the Roman religion as a tiresome ritual formalism, almost wholly lacking in ethical value. And yet it did not present itself in this light to the Romans themselves. Cicero, sceptic as he was, could speak of it as the cause of Rome's greatness; Augustus, the practical politician, could believe that its revival was an essential condition for the renaissance of the Roman character. Have we, in our brief examination of its characteristics, seen any features which may suggest the solution of this apparent antagonism? Was there in this formalism a life which escapes us, as we handle the dry bones of antiquarianism?

In the first place there may be a danger that we underrate the value of formalism itself. It spells routine, but routine is not without value in the strengthening of character. The private citizen, who conscientiously day by day had carried out the worship of his household G.o.ds and month by month observed the sacred abstinence from work on the days of festival, was certainly not less fitted to take his place as a member of a strenuous and well-organised community, or to serve obediently and quietly in the army on campaign. Even the magistrate in the execution of his religious duties must have acquired an exactness and method, which would not be valueless in the conduct of public business. And when we pa.s.s to the origin of this formalism--the legal relation--the connection with the Roman character becomes at once more obvious. The 'lawgivers of the world,' who developed const.i.tution and code to a systematised whole such as antiquity had not dreamed of before, imported, we may say if we like, their legal notions into the sphere of religion: but we must not forget the other side of the question. The permanence and success of this greater contract with higher powers--the feeling that the G.o.ds did regard and reward exact fulfilment of duty--cannot have been without re-action on the relations of the life of the community: it was, as it were, a higher sanction to the legal point of view: a pledge that the relations of citizen and state too were rightly conceived. 'There is,' says Cicero, speaking of the death of Clodius in the language of a later age, 'there is a divine power which inspired that criminal to his own ruin: it was not by chance that he expired before the shrine of the Bona Dea, whose rites he had violated': the divine justice is the sanction of the human law.