The Religious Experience of the Roman People Part 4

The modern French school of sociologists, which now has to be reckoned with in investigating the early history of religion, claims that magic was not originally, as we now see it, a matter of individual skill, but a sociological fact, _i.e._ it was used for the benefit of the community, as religion came to be in a later age. If this be true, as it very possibly is, we see at once how the dead bones of magical processes might survive, with their original meaning entirely lost, into an age in which higher and more reasonable ideas had been developed about the relation of Man to the Power manifesting itself in the universe. To take a single example from Rome, divination by the examination of a victim's entrails was originally a magical process, according to the opinion of most modern authorities;[108] but it ceases to be magic when it is used simply to determine in the State ritual whether in a religious process the victim is perfect and agreeable to the deity. In fact magical formulae, magical instruments, unless they are used in the true spirit of magic, to compel, not to propitiate a deity, are no longer magic, and may be pa.s.sed over here. When we come to discuss the ritual of sacrifice and prayer, of _l.u.s.tratio_, of vows, of divination, we may find it necessary to recall what has here been said. On the whole, we may conclude that organised religious cult, from its very nature and object, everywhere excluded magic in the true sense of the word; it implies prayer and propitiation, both of which are absolutely inconsistent with the object and methods of magic. Religion is the product of a higher stage of social development; it is the expression of a real advance of human thought; and in telling the story of the religious experience of the Roman people we are but indirectly concerned with those more rude and rudimentary ideas which it displaced.

But in private life, outside of the organised cult of the State and the family, magic was all through Roman history abundant, even over-abundant, and in this form I cannot pa.s.s it over entirely. Though the State authorities seem to have taken pains to exclude it rigidly from the public rites, and though there is little trace of it in the religious life of family and gens, yet there is evidence that it was deeply rooted in the nature of the people, and that they must have pa.s.sed through an age in which it was an important factor in their social life. This fact, taken together with its almost complete elimination from the public religion, throws into relief the persistent efforts of the State authorities, from the framing of the old religious calendar to the time of the Augustan revival, to keep their relations with the Power clear of all that they believed to be unworthy or injurious. No better example can be found of the inherent antagonism between religion and magic.

Private magic may be divided into two kinds, according as it was used to damage another, or only to benefit oneself. In the former case the State interfered to protect the person threatened with damage, and treated this kind of magic as a crime. The commonest form of it was that of the spell, or _carmen_, no doubt often sung, and accompanied by some action which would bring it under the head of sympathetic magic; but the spell alone is taken cognisance of by the State. Pliny has preserved three words from the XII. Tables which tell their own tale: "qui fruges excanta.s.sit."[109] Servius, commenting on the line of Virgil's 8th _Eclogue_, "atque satas alio vidi traducere messes," writes, "magicis quibusdam artibus hoc fiebat, unde est in XII. Tabb. 'Neve alienam segetem pellexeris.'" These last words, with the verb in the second person, are probably not quoted exactly from the ancient text,[110] but they help to show us the nature of this hostile spell. There must have been a belief that the spirit, or life, or fructifying power of your neighbour's crops could be enticed away and transferred to your own.

This is confirmed by a remark of St. Augustine in the _de Civitate Dei_;[111] after quoting the same line from Virgil, he adds, "eo quod hac pestifera scelerataque doctrina fructus alieni in alias terras transferri perhibentur, nonne in XII. Tabulis, id est Romanorum antiquissimis legibus, Cicero commemorat esse conscriptum et ei qui hoc fecerit supplicium const.i.tutum?" Given the belief, the temptation can be well understood if we reflect that the arable land of the old Romans was divided in sections of a square, and that each man's allotment would have that of a neighbour on two sides at least.[112] If one man's corn were found to be more flourishing than that of his neighbours, what more likely than that he should have enticed away the spirit of their crops?

The process reminds us, as it reminded Pliny, of the _evocatio_ of the G.o.ds of foreign communities, a rite which belongs to religion and not to magic, though it doubtless had its origin in the same cla.s.s of ideas as the _excantatio_.

In more general terms the old Roman law (_i.e._ originally the _ius divinum_) forbade the use of evil spells, as we see in another fragment of the Tables, "qui malum carmen incanta.s.sit." In later times this was usually taken as referring to libel and slander, but there can be no doubt that the carmina here alluded to were originally magical, and became _carmina famosa_ in the course of legal interpretation. Cicero seems to combine the two meanings in the _de Rep._ (iv. 10. 2) when he says that the Tables made it a capital offence "si quis occentavisset, sive carmen condidisset quod infamiam faceret flagitiumve alteri" (to bring shame or criminal reproach on another). In the later sense these carmina have a curious history, into which I cannot enter now.[113] In the earlier sense they existed and flourished without doubt, in spite of the law; or it may be that, as the words of the Tables were interpreted in the new sense, the old form of offence was tolerated in private. "We are all afraid," says Pliny, "of being 'nailed' (_defigi_) by spells and curses" (_diris precationibus_).[114] These _dirae_, and all the various forms of love-charms, _defixiones_, accompanied by the symbolic actions which are found all the world over, lie outside my present subject, and are so familiar to us all in Roman literature that I do not need to dwell on them.[115]

Nor of the common harmless kind of magic need I say much now. It survived, of course, alongside of the religion of the family and State, from the earliest times to the latest, as it survives at the present day in all countries civilised and uncivilised; and being harmless the State took no heed of it. Some a.s.sortment of charms and spells for the cure of diseases will be found in Cato's book on agriculture, and one or two incidentally occur in that of Varro.[116] They performed the work of insurance against both fire and accident, and even such a man as Julius Caesar was not independent of such arts. Pliny tells us that after experiencing a carriage accident he used to repeat a certain spell three times as soon as he had taken his seat in a vehicle, and adds significantly, "id quod plerosque nunc facere scimus."[117] Such carmina were written on the walls of houses to insure them against fire.[118]

Pliny has a large collection of small magical delusions and superst.i.tions, many of which have an interest for anthropologists, in the 28th book of his _Natural History_.

Another kind of harmless magic, to which the Romans, like all Italians ancient and modern, were peculiarly addicted, is the use of amulets.

Here there is no spell, or obvious and expressed exercise of will-power on the part of the individual, but the potent influence, _mana_, or whatever we choose to call it, resides in a material object which brings good luck, like the cast horse-shoe of our own times, or protects against hostile will-power, and especially against the evil eye. This curious and widely-spread superst.i.tion was probably the _raison d'etre_ of most of the amulets worn or carried by Romans. A modern Italian, even if he be a complete sceptic and materialist, will probably be found to have some amulet about him against the evil eye, "just to be on the safe side."[119] A list of amulets, both Greek and Roman, will be found in the _Dictionary of Antiquities_, and in Pauly-Wissowa, _Real-Encyclopadie, s.v._ "amulet," and it is not necessary here to explain the various kinds in use in Italy; but I must dwell for a moment on one type, which had been taken up into the life of the family, and in one sense into that of the State, viz. the _bulla_ worn by children, both boys and girls.

The bulla was a small object, enclosed in historical times in a capsule, and suspended round the child's neck. It was popularly believed to have been originally an Etruscan custom,[120] and borrowed by the Romans, like so many other ornaments. It is, however, much more probable that the custom was old Italian (as indeed the "medicine-bag" is world-wide), and that the Etruscan contribution to it was merely the case or capsule, which was of gold where the family could afford it--gold itself being supposed to have some potency as a charm.[121] The object within the case was, as Pliny tells us, a _res turpicula_ as a rule,[122] and this may remind us that a _fascinum_ was carried in the car of the triumphator as _medicus invidiae_, to use Pliny's pregnant expression.

The triumphing general needed special protection; he appeared in the guise of Jupiter himself, and was for the moment lifted above the ordinary rank of humanity. Some feeling of the same kind must have originally suggested similar means for the protection of children under the age of p.u.b.erty. They also wore the _toga praetexta_, which, though a.s.sociated by us with secular magistrates, had undoubtedly a religious origin. There are distinct signs that children were in some sense sacred, and at the same time that they needed special protection against the all-abounding evil influences to be met with in daily life.[123]

Thus this particular form of amulet became a recognised inst.i.tution of family life, and in due time little more than a mark of childhood.

Yet another kind of charm must be mentioned here which was used at certain festivals, though apparently not at any of those belonging to the authorised calendar. At the Compitalia, Paga.n.a.lia, and _feriae Latinae_ we are told that small images of the human figure, or masks, or simply round b.a.l.l.s (_pilae_), were hung up on trees or doorways, and left to swing in the wind.[124] At the Compitalia the images had a special name, _maniae_, of which the meaning is lost; but inasmuch as the charms were hung up at cross-roads on that occasion, where the Lares compitales of the various properties had their shrine, it was not difficult to manufacture out of them a G.o.ddess, Mania, mother of the Lares.[125] The common word for these figures was _oscilla_, and the fact of their swinging in the wind suggested a verb _oscillare_, which survives in our own tongue with the same meaning. Until lately it used to be believed that they were subst.i.tutes for original human sacrifices: a view for which there is not a particle of evidence, though it was originated by Roman scholars.[126] Modern anthropology has found another explanation, which is by no means improbable. Dr. Frazer, in an appendix to the 2nd volume of the _Golden Bough_, has collected a number of examples of the practice of swinging _by human beings_ as a magical rite; they come from many parts of the world, including ancient Athens, and even modern Calabria. He also points out that at the _feriae Latinae_ the swingers seem to have been human beings, if we accept the evidence of Festus, _s.v._ "oscillantes"; thus we are left with the possibility that the oscilla were really imitations of men and women, though not of human sacrificial victims.

Dr. Frazer is obviously hard put to it to explain the original meaning and object of this curious custom. In the Paga.n.a.lia, as described by Virgil in the second _Georgic_,[127] the object would seem to be the prosperity of the vine-crop.

coloni versibus incomptis ludunt risuque soluto, oraque corticibus sumunt horrenda cavatis, et te Bacche vocant per carmina laeta, tibique oscilla ex alta suspendunt mollia pinu.

hinc omnis largo p.u.b.escit vinea fetu, etc.[128]

But here we must leave a question which is still unsolved. All we can say is that the old idea of subst.i.tutes for human sacrifice must be finally given up, and that the _oscilla_, whether or not they were subst.i.tutes for human swingers, were probably charms intended to ward off evil influences from the crops. I am not disposed to put any confidence in what Servius tells us, that this was a purification by means of air, just as fire and water were also purifying agents; this looks like the ingenious explanation of a later and a religious age.[129]

So much, then, for magical charms and spells, and the survivals of them in the fully developed Roman religion.[130] It might seem hardly worth while to spend even so much time on them as I have done, and I cannot deny that I am glad now to be able to leave them. My object has simply been to show how little of this kind of practice, which meets us on the threshold of religion, was allowed to survive by the religious authorities of the State; in other words, I wished to make clear that in our inquiries into the nature of the Roman religion it is really religion and not magic that we have to do with.

It is really religion; it is desire, beginning already to be effective, to be in right relation to the Power manifesting itself in the universe.

The Romans, as I hope to show in the next lecture, when we can begin to know and feel an interest in them, had not only begun to recognise this Power in various forms and functions as one that must be propitiated, because they were dependent on it for their daily needs, but to regulate and make permanent the methods of propitiation. What was the relation between this simple religion and morality--between ritual and conduct--is a very difficult question, to which I shall return later on.

Dr. Westermarck has recently come to the conclusion that the religion of primitive man has no true relation to morality, that it is not apt to give a sanction to good action, or to develop the germs of a conscience.

But so far as I can discern, the idea of active duty, and therefore the germ of conscience, must have been so intimately connected with the religious practice of the old Latin family that it is to me impossible to think of the one apart from the other. Surely it is in that life that the famous word "_pius_" must have originated, which throughout Roman history meant the sense of duty towards family, State, and G.o.ds, as every reader of the _Aeneid_ knows. That the formalised religion of later times had become almost entirely divorced from morality there is indeed no doubt; but in the earliest times, in the old Roman family and then in the budding State, the whole life of the Roman seems to me so inextricably bound up with his religion that I cannot possibly see how that religion can have been distinguishable from his simple idea of duty and discipline.

NOTES TO LECTURE III

[81] Westermarck, _Origin etc. of Moral Ideas_, ii. 584.

[82] Jevons, _Introduction_, p. 33.

[83] A useful summary of the whole subject, embodying the results and terminology of Tylor, Frazer, and other anthropologists, is Dr. Haddon's _Magic and Fetishism_, in Messrs. Constable's series, _Religions Ancient and Modern_. See also Marett, _On the Threshold of Religion_, pa.s.sim.

[84] _Lectures on the Early History of the Kingship_, p.

89 foll. For an example not mentioned in the text (_devotio_) see below, p. 206 foll. This may have been originally practised by the Latin kings. I may here draw attention to the almost dogmatic conclusions of the modern French sociological school of research; _e.g._ M.

Huvelin, in _L'Annee sociologique_ for 1907, begins by a.s.serting as a fundamental law, proved by MM. Hubert et Mauss, that magic is just as much a social fact as religion: "Les uns et les autres sont des produits de l'activite collective" (_Magie et droit individuel_, p.

1). But M. Huvelin's paper is to some extent a modification of this dogma. He seeks to explain the fact that magic is both secret and private, not public and social, in historical times; and in the domain of law, with which he is specially concerned, he concludes that "a magical rite is only a religious rite twisted from its proper social end, and employed to realise the will or belief of an individual" (p. 46). This is the only form in which we shall find magic at Rome, except in so far as a few of its forms survive in the ritual of religion with their meaning changed. In early Roman law, as a quasi-religious body of rules and practices, there are a few magical survivals which will be found mentioned by M. Huvelin in this article; but they are of no importance for our present subject.

[85] _Primitive Culture_, vol. i. ch. iv. See also Jevons, _Introduction_, p. 36 foll.

[86] See Schurer, _Jewish People in the Time of Christ_ (Eng. trans.), Division II. vol. iii. p. 151 foll.

[87] Fowler, _R.F._ p. 232; Wissowa, _R.K._ p. 106. The most careful examination of the rite and the evidence for it is that of Aust in _Mythological Lexicon_, _s.v._ "Iuppiter," p. 656 foll. See also M.H. Morgan in vol.

x.x.xii. of _Transactions of the American Philological a.s.sociation_, p. 104.

[88] Tertullian, _de Jejun_. 16. Petronius, _Sat._ 44, adds that the matrons went in the procession with bare feet and streaming hair (cp. Pliny xvii. 266); but this seems rather Greek than Roman in character, and Petronius is plainly thinking of the town (_colonia_ he calls it) in southern Italy where the scene of Trimalchio's supper is laid; probably a Greek city by origin, Croton or c.u.mae. A translation of this pa.s.sage will be found in Dill's _Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius_, p. 133. The most useful words in it for our purpose are "Jovem aquam exorabant."

[89] This suggestion was originally made by O. Gilbert, _Rom. Topographie_, ii. 184.

[90] p. 204 foll.

[91] p. 657. The story is mixed up with Greek fables, _e.g._ that of Proteus, as Wissowa has pointed out, _R.K._ p. 106, note 10.

[92] See Schanz, _Gesch. der rom. Literatur_, vol. i.

(ed. 3) p. 270 foll.

[93] This fragment of Piso is preserved by Gellius, xi.

14. 1.

[94] See, _e.g._, Schanz, _Gesch. der rom. Literatur_, vol. ii. p. 106.

[95] Wissowa, _l.c._ Aust in Roscher's _Lexicon_, _s.v._ "Iuppiter," p. 657.

[96] c.u.mont, _Religions Orientales dans le paganisme romain_, ch. 5. I shall return to this subject in my second course of lectures.

[97] Muller-Deecke, _Etrusker_, ii. ch. vii., especially p. 176 foll.

[98] Cp. below, Lecture XV.

[99] Pliny, _N.H._ xxviii. 13: "Vestales nostras hodie credimus nondum egressa urbe mancipia fugitiva retinere in loco precationibus."

[100] Plutarch, _Numa_, 10. Virginity would increase the power of the spell; see Fehrle, _Die kultische Keuschheit im Altertum_, p. 54 foll.

[101] See, _e.g._, Frazer, _G.B._ i. 360 foll.

[102] See _R.F._ p. 320, notes 6 and 7.

[103] Within the last thirty years or so the Lupercalia has been discussed (apart from writers on cla.s.sical subjects exclusively) by Mannhardt in his _Mythologische Studien_, p. 72 foll.; Robertson Smith, _Semites_, p.

459; Deubner in _Archiv_, 1910, p. 481 foll.; and at the moment of writing by E. S. Hartland, _Primitive Paternity_, i. ch. ii. _R.F._ p. 310 foll. See Appendix D.

[104] This view was originally stated in Pauly-Wissowa, _s.v._ "Argei." I endeavoured to confute it in the _Cla.s.sical Review_, 1902, p. 115 foll., and Wissowa replied in _Gesammelte Abhandlungen_, p. 211 foll. Since then my conviction has become stronger that this great scholar is for once wrong. Ennius alluded to the Argei as an inst.i.tution of Numa, _i.e._ as primitive (frag.

121, Vahlen, from Festus p. 355, and Varro, _L.L._ vii.

44), yet Ennius was a youth at the very time when Wissowa insists that the rite originated. Wissowa makes no attempt to explain this. See below, p. 321 foll.

[105] _R.F._ p. 111 foll.

[106] _e.g._ the October horse, which also occurred on the Ides; see _R.F._ p. 241 foll.; and the festival of Anna Perenna, also on Ides (March 15), _R.F._ p. 50 foll. It is just possible that all the three festivals were originally in the old calendar, and dropped out because the mark of the Ides had to be affixed to the day in the first place. See Wissowa, _Gesammelte Abhandlungen_, p. 164 foll.; _R.F._ p. 241.