The spirit-gods then of the door and the hearth, the specially chosen
deities of the store-cupboard, the particular field-power presiding
over the household, and the spirit of the master's personality were the
gods of the early home, and round their worship centred the domestic
religion. We must attempt to see what was its relation to family life.
=2. Religion and the Family Life.=--We have already noticed the main
occasions of regular sacrifice to the deities of the household, the
offerings to the Lar on Calends, Nones, and Ides, to the Genius on the
master's birthday, and so on, and we are enabled to form a fair picture
of the rites from paintings which, although of later date, undoubtedly
represent the continuous tradition of domestic custom. In a
wall-painting at Herculaneum, for instance, we have a picture of the
_pater familias_, represented with veiled head (according to regular
Roman custom) and the cornucopia of the Genius, making sacrifice at a
round altar or hearth. Opposite him stands the flute-player (_tibicen_)
playing to drown any unpropitious sound, while on either side are two
smaller figures, presumably the sons, acting as attendants (_camilli_),
and both clad (_succincti_) in the short sacrificial tunic (_limus_);
one carries in his left hand the sacred dish (_patera_), and in his
right garlands or, more probably, ribbons for the decoration of the
victim: the other is acting as _victimarius_ and bringing the pig for
sacrifice, but the animal is hurrying with almost excessive eagerness
towards the altar, no doubt to show that there is none of the
reluctance which would have been sufficient to vitiate the sacrifice.
But from our point of view such formal acts of worship are of less
importance than the part played by religion in the daily life of the
household. There is evidence both for earlier and later periods that
the really 'pious' would begin their day with prayer and sacrifice to
the household gods, and like Virgil's Aeneas, typically _pius_ in all
the meanings of the word, would 'rouse the slumbering flame upon the
altar and gladly approach again the Lar and little Penates whom he
worshipped yesterday.' But this was perhaps exceptional devotion, and
the daily worship in the normal household centred rather round the
family meal. In the old and simple house the table would be placed at
the side of the hearth, and, as the household sat round it, master and
man together, a part of the meal, set aside on a special sacred dish
(_patella_), would be thrown into the flames as the gods' portion.
Sometimes incense might be added, and later a libation of wine: when
images had become common, the little statuettes of Lares and Penates
would be fetched from the shrine (_lararium_) and placed upon the table
in token of their presence at the meal. Even in the luxurious,
many-roomed house of the imperial epoch, when the dining-table was far
from the kitchen-hearth, a pause was made in the meal and an offering
sent out to the household-gods, nor would the banquet proceed until the
slave had returned and announced that the gods were favourable (_deos
propitios_): so persistent was this tradition of domestic piety. Prayer
might be made at this point on special occasions to special deities,
as, for instance, before the beginning of the sowing of the crops,
appeal was made to Iuppiter, and a special portion of the meal (_daps_)
was set aside for him. The sanctification of the one occasion when the
whole household met in the day cannot fail to have had its effect on
the domestic life, and, even if it was no direct incentive to morality,
it yet bound the family together in a sense of dependence on a higher
power for the supply of their daily needs.
We observed incidentally how the small events of domestic life were
given their religious significance, particularly in connection with the
worship of Lar and Genius, but to complete the sketch of domestic
religion, we must examine a little more closely its relation to the
process of life, and especially to the two important occasions of birth
and marriage. In no department of life is the specialisation of
function among the _numina_ more conspicuous than in connection with
birth and childhood. Apart from the general protection of Iuno Lucina,
the prominent divinity of childbirth, we can count in the records that
have come down to us some twenty subordinate spirits, who from the
moment of conception to the moment of birth watched, each in its own
particular sphere, over the mother and the unborn child. As soon as the
birth had taken place began a series of ceremonies, which are of
particular interest, as they seem to belong to a very early stage of
religious thought, and have a markedly rustic character. Immediately a
sacred meal was offered to the two field-deities, Picumnus and
Pilumnus, and then the Roman turned his attention to the practical
danger of fever for the mother and child. At night three men gathered
round the threshold, one armed with an axe, another with a stake, and a
third with a broom: the two first struck the threshold with their
implements, the third swept out the floor. Over this ceremony were said
to preside three _numina_, Intercidona (connected with the axe),
Pilumnus (connected with the stake, _pilum_), and Deverra (connected
with the act of sweeping). Its object was, as Varro explains it, to
avert the entrance of the half-wild Silvanus by giving three
unmistakeable signs of human civilisation; we shall probably not be
wrong in seeing in it rather an actual hacking, beating, and sweeping
away of evil spirits. On the ninth day after birth, in the case of a
boy, on the eighth in the case of a girl, occurred the festival of the
naming (_solemnitas nominalium_). The ceremony was one of purification
(_dies lustricus_ is its alternative title), and a piacular offering
was made to preserve the child from evil influences in the future.
Friends brought presents, especially neck-bands in the form of a
half-moon (_lunulae_), and the golden balls (_bullae_) which were worn
as a charm round the neck until the attainment of manhood.
Of the numerous petty divinities which watched over the child's early
years we have already given some account. In their protection he
remained until he arrived at puberty, about the age of seventeen, when
with due religious ceremony he entered on his manhood. At home, on the
morning of the festival, he solemnly laid aside the _bulla_ and the
purple-striped garb of childhood (_toga praetexta_) before the shrine
of the household gods, and made them a thank-offering for their
protection in the past. Afterwards, accompanied by his father and
friends and clad now in the _toga virilis_, he went solemnly to the
Capitol, and, after placing a contribution in the coffers of
Iuventas--or probably in earlier times of Iuppiter Iuventus--made an
offering to the supreme deity Iuppiter Capitolinus. The sacred
character of the early years of a young Roman's life could hardly be
more closely marked.
Though _confarreatio_ was the only essentially religious form of
marriage, and was sanctified by the presence of the _pontifex maximus_
and the _flamen Dialis_, yet marriage even in the less religious
ceremony of _coemptio_ was always a _sacrum_. It must not take place on
the days of state-festivals (_feriae_), nor on certain other _dies
religiosi_, such as those of the Vestalia or the feast of the dead
(_Parentalia_). Both the marriage itself and the preliminary betrothal
(_sponsalia_) had to receive the divine sanction by means of auspices,
and in the ceremonies of both rites the religious element, though bound
up with superstition and folk-customs, emerges clearly enough. The
central ceremony of the _confarreatio_ was an act partly of sacrifice,
partly, one might almost say, of communion. The bride and bridegroom
sat on two chairs united to one another and covered with a lambskin,
they offered to Iuppiter bloodless offerings of a rustic character
(_fruges et molam salsam_), they employed in the sacrifice the
fundamental household necessaries, water, fire, and salt, and
themselves ate of the sacred spelt-cake (_libus farreus_), from which
the ceremony derived its name. The crucial point in the more civil
ceremony of _coemptio_ was the purely human and legal act of the
joining of hands (_dextrarum iunctio_), but it was immediately followed
by the sacrifice of a victim, which gave the ceremony a markedly
religious significance. The customs connected with the bringing of the
bride to the bridegroom's house--so beautifully depicted in Catullus'
_Epithalamium_--her forcible abduction from her parents, the ribaldry
of the bridegroom's companions, the throwing of nuts as a symbol of
fecundity, the carrying of the bride over the threshold, a relic
probably of primitive marriage by capture, the untying of the bridal
knot on the bridal couch--are perhaps more akin to superstition than
religion, but we may notice two points in the proceedings. Firstly, the
three coins (_asses_) which the bride brought with her, one to give to
her husband as a token of dowry, one to be offered at the hearth to her
new Lar Familiaris, one to be offered subsequently at the nearest
_compitum_ (a clear sign of connection between the household Lar and
those of the fields); and secondly, an echo of the feature so marked
all through domestic life, the crowd of little _numina_, who took their
part in assisting the ceremony. There was Domiduca, who brought the
bride to the bridegroom's house, Iterduca, who looked after her on the
transit, Unxia, who anointed her, Cinxia, who bound and unbound her
girdle, and many others.
This sketch of the household worship of the Romans will, I hope, have
justified my contention that there was in it an element more truly
'religious' than anything we should gather from the ceremonies of the
state. The ideas are simpler, the _numina_ seem less cold and more
protective, the worshippers more sensible of divine aid. When we have
looked at the companion picture of the farmer in the fields, we shall
go on to see how the worship of the agricultural household is the
prototype and basis of the state-cult, but first we must consider
briefly the very difficult question of the relation of the living to
the dead.
=3. Relation of the Living and the Dead.=--The worship of the spirits
of dead ancestors is so common a feature in most primitive religions
that it may seem strange even to doubt whether it existed among the
Romans, but, although the question is one of extreme difficulty, and
the evidence very insufficient, I am inclined to believe that, though
the living were always conscious of their continued relation to the
dead, and sensitive of the influence of the powers of the underworld,
yet there was not, strictly speaking, any cult of the dead. Let us
attempt briefly to collect the salient features in ritual, and see to
what conclusion they point as to the underlying belief.
One of the most remarkable facts in domestic worship is that, whereas
the moment of birth and the other great occasions of life are
surrounded with religious ceremony and belief, the moment of death
passes without any trace of religious accompaniment: it is as though
the dying man went out into another world where the ceremonials of this
life can no more avail him, nor its gods protect him. As to his state
after death, opinion varied at different times under different
influences, but the simple early notion, connected especially with the
practice of burial as opposed to cremation,[6] was that his spirit just
sank into the earth, where it rested and returned from time to time to
the upper world through certain openings in the ground (_mundi_), whose
solemn uncovering was one of the regular observances of the festal
calendar: later, no doubt, a more spiritual notion prevailed, though it
never reached definiteness or universality. One idea, however, seems
always to be prominent, that the happiness of the dead could be much
affected by the due performance of the funeral rites; hence it was the
most solemn duty of the heir to perform the _iusta_ for the dead, and
if he failed in any respect to carry them out, he could only atone for
his omission by the annual sacrifice of a sow (_porca praecidanea_) to
Ceres and Tellus--to the divinities of the earth, be it noticed, and
not to the dead themselves. The actual funeral was not a religious
ceremony; a procession was formed (originally at night) of the family
and friends, in which the body of the dead was carried--accompanied by
the busts (_imagines_) of his ancestors--to a tomb outside the town,
and was there laid in the grave. The family on their return proceeded
at once to rites of purification from the contamination which had
overtaken them owing to the presence of a dead body. Two ceremonies
were performed, one for the purification of the house by the sacrifice
of a sow (_porca praesentanea_) to Ceres accompanied by a solemn
sweeping out of refuse (_exverræ_), the other the lustration of their
own persons by fire and water. This done, they sat down with their
friends to a funeral feast (_silicernium_), which, Cicero tells us, was
regarded as an honour rather to the surviving members of the family
than to the dead, so that mourning was not worn. Two other ceremonies
within the following week, the _feriae denicales_ and the _novendiale
sacrum_, brought the religious mourning to a close. Not that the dead
were forgotten after the funeral: year by year, on the anniversaries of
death and burial, and on certain fixed occasions known by such
suggestive titles as 'the day of roses' and 'the day of violets,' the
family would revisit the tomb and make simple offerings of salt cake
(_mola salsa_), of bread soaked in wine, or garlands of flowers: there
is some trace, on such occasions, of prayer, but it would seem to be
rather the repetition of general religious formulæ than a petition to
the dead for definite blessings.
Such are the principal features of the family ritual in relation to
their dead; but if we are to form any just notion of belief, we must
supplement them by reference to the ceremonies of the state, which
here, as elsewhere, are very clearly the household-cult 'writ large.'
In the Calendars we find two obvious celebrations in connection with
the dead, taking place at different seasons of the year, and consisting
of ceremonies markedly different in character. In the gloomy month of
February--associated with solemn lustrations--occurs the festival known
popularly (though not in the Calendars) as the Parentalia or dies
Parentales, that is, the days of sacrifice in connection with the dead
members of the family (_parentes_, _parentare_). It begins with the
note on February 13, _Virgo Vestalis parentat_, and continues till the
climax, _Feralia_, on February 21. During these days the magistrates
laid aside the insignia of their offices, the temples were shut,
marriages were forbidden, and every family carried out at the tombs of
its relatives ceremonies resembling those of the _sacra privata_. The
whole season closed on February 22 with the festival of the Caristia or
_cara cognatio_, a family reunion of the survivors in a kind of
'love-feast,' which centred in the worship of the Lar Familiaris. Here
we seem to have simply, as in the family rites, a peaceful and solemn
acknowledgment by the community as a whole of the still subsisting
relation of the living and the dead. On the 9th, 11th, and 13th of May
occurs the Lemuria, a ceremony of a strikingly different order. Once
again temples are shut and marriages forbidden, but the ritual is of a
very different nature. The _Lemures_ or _Larvae_--for there seems to be
little distinction between the two names--are regarded no longer as
members of the family to be welcomed back to their place, but as
hostile spirits to be exorcised.[7] The head of the house rises from
bed at midnight, washes, and walks barefoot through the house, making
signs for the aversion of evil spirits. In his mouth he carries black
beans--always a chthonic symbol--which he spits out nine times without
looking round, saying, as he does so, 'With these I redeem me and
mine': he washes again, and clanks brass vessels together; nine times
he repeats the formula, 'depart, Manes of our fathers' (no doubt using
the dignified title Manes euphemistically), and then finally turns
round. Here we have in a quite unmistakeable manner the feeling of the
hostility of the spirits of the dead: they must be given their
appropriate food and got out of the place as quickly as possible. Some
scholars have attempted to explain the difference between these two
festivals on the assumption that the Parentalia represents the
commemoration of the duly buried dead, the Lemuria the apotropaic right
for the aversion of the unburied, and therefore hostile spirits; but
Ovid has given a far more significant hint, when he tells us that the
Lemuria was the more ancient festival of the two.
So far we have had no indication of anything approaching divinity in
connection with the dead or the underworld as distinct from the
earth-goddesses, but the evidence for it, though vague and shadowy, is
not wanting. Certain mysterious female deities, Tarpeia, Acca Larentia,
Carna, and Laverna, of whom late ætiological myth had its own
explanation, have, in all probability, been rightly interpreted by
Mommsen as divinities of the lower world: the commemorative 'sacrifice
at the tomb,' which we hear of in connection with the first two, was in
reality, we may suppose, an offering to a chthonic deity at a _mundus_.
A rather more tangible personality is Vediovis, who three times a year
has his celebration (_Agonia_ not _feriae_) in the Calendar: he, as his
name denotes, must be the 'opposite of Iove,' that is, probably, his
chthonic counterpart, a notion sufficiently borne out by his subsequent
identification with the Greek Pluto. Finally, of course, there is that
vague body, the Di Manes, 'the good gods,' the principal deities of the
world of the dead; to them invocations are addressed, and they have
their place in the formulæ of the _parentalia_ and the opening of the
_mundi_.[8] In connection with them, acting as a link with the female
deities, we have the strange goddess Genita Mana, the 'spirit of birth
and death.'
Controversy is acute as to the interpretation of these facts,
especially in regard to the question whether or no the spirits of the
dead were actually worshipped. I would hazard the following
reconstruction of history as consistent with what we otherwise know of
Roman religion, and with the evidence before us. From the earliest
times the Roman looked upon his dead relations as in some sense living,
lying beneath the earth, but capable alike of returning to the world
above and of influencing in some vague way the fortunes of the living,
especially in relation to the crops which sprung from the ground in
which they lay. At first, when his religion was one of fear, he
regarded the dead as normally hostile, and their presence as something
to be averted; this is the stage which gave birth to the Lemuria. As
civilisation increased, and the sense of the unity of household and
community developed, fear, proving ungrounded, gave place to a kindlier
feeling of the continued existence of the dead as members of household
and state, and even in some sense as an additional bond between the
living: this is the period which produced the _sacra privata_ and the
Parentalia. When the _numen_-feeling began to pass into that of _deus_,
in the first place a connection was felt between the spirits of the
dead and the deities of the earth associated with the growth of the
crops, in the second the notion that the underworld must have its gods
as well as the world above, produced the shadowy female deities and
Vediovis. Lastly, the same kind of feeling which added Parentalia to
Lemuria developed the vague general notion of the Di Manes, not the
deified spirits of the dead, but peaceful and on the whole kindly
divinities holding sway in the world of dead spirits, yet accessible to
the prayers of the living. The dead, then, were not themselves
worshipped, but they needed commemoration and kindly gifts, and they
had in their lower world deities to whom prayer might be made and
worship given.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] It is right to state that there is a totally different theory,
according to which the Lares were the spirits of the dead ancestors and
the Lar Familiaris an embodiment, as it were, of all the family dead.
[6] It is significant that even when the dead were cremated, one bone
was carefully preserved in order to be symbolically buried.
[7] We may note that, though it is a state festival, our information is
solely of rites in individual households.
[8] Their mention in sepulchral inscriptions dates from the time of the
Empire, when a new conception of their nature had sprung up.
CHAPTER VI
WORSHIP OF THE FIELDS
The life of the early Roman in the fields, his activities, his hopes
and fears, are reflected in the long list of agricultural festivals
which constitute the greater part of the celebrations in the Calendar,
and follow closely the seasons and occupations of the agricultural
year. We are, of course, in the Calendar dealing, to speak strictly,
with the worship of the state, and not with the semi-private festivals
of groups of farmers, but in many instances, such as the Robigalia, the
state seems only to have taken over the cult of the farmers, preserving
carefully the site on which the celebration took place; in others, such
as the Terminalia and the Parilia, it seems to have established, as it
were, a state-counterpart of a rite performed independently at many
rustic centres: in both cases we are justified in inferring the
practice of the early Roman agriculturalist. We shall see that in most
cases these festivals are associated--though often loosely
enough--with the worship of a particular divinity. Sometimes,
however,--as in the case of the Lupercalia--it is very difficult to
discover who this divinity was; in other festivals, such as the
Robigalia, it looks as if the eponymous deity was a comparatively late
development. We may, therefore, suppose, on the analogy of what we have
already seen to be the general lines of development in Roman religion,
that the festivals in origin centred round a purpose rather than a
personality, and were addressed 'to all spirits whom it might concern';
and that later, when the _deus_ notion was on the increase, they either
attached themselves to some god whose personality was already distinct,
as the Vinalia were attached to Iuppiter, or 'developed' a deity of
their own. Among these deities, strictly functional as a rule and
existing only in connection with their special festival, we shall
notice the frequent recurrence of a divinity pair, not, of course,
mythologically related as husband and wife, but representing, perhaps,
the male and female aspects of the same process of development.
The festivals divide themselves naturally into three groups: those of
Spring, expressive of the hopes and fears for the growing crops and
herds; those of Summer, the festivals of fulfilment, including the
celebration of harvest; and those of Winter, the festivals of sowing,
of social rejoicing, and in the later months of purificatory
anticipation of the coming year.
=1. Festivals of Spring.=--The old Roman year--as may be seen clearly
enough from the names of the months still known by numbers, September,
October, etc.--began in March: according to tradition Romulus reckoned
a year of ten months altogether, and Numa added January and February.
The Spring months properly speaking may be reckoned as March, April,
and May. In March there were in the developed Calendar no festivals of
an immediately recognisable agricultural character, but the whole month
was practically consecrated to its eponymous deity, Mars. Now, to the
Roman of the Republic, Mars was undoubtedly the deity associated with
war, and his special festivals in this month are of a warlike
character: on the 9th the priests (_Salii_) began the ancient custom of
carrying his sacred shields (_ancilia_) round the town from one
ordained resting-place to another: on the 19th, Quinquatrus, the
shields were solemnly purified, and on the 23rd the same ceremony was
performed with the war-trumpets: the Equirria (horse-races) of March
14 may have had an agricultural origin--we shall meet with races later
on as a feature of rustic festivals--but they were certainly celebrated
in a military manner. Yet there is good reason for believing that Mars
was in origin associated not with war, but with the growth of
vegetation: he was, as we shall see, the chief deity addressed in the
solemn lustration of the fields (_Ambarvalia_), and if our general
notion of the development of religion with the growing needs of the
agricultural community crystallising into a state be correct, it may
well be that a deity originally concerned with the interests of the
farmer took on himself the protection of the soldier, when the fully
developed state came into collision with its neighbours. If so, we may
well have in these recurring festivals of Mars the sense, as Mr. Warde
Fowler has put it, of 'some great _numen_ at work, quickening
vegetation, and calling into life the powers of reproduction in man and
the animals.' Possibly another agricultural note is struck in the
Liberalia of the 17th: though the cult of Liber was almost entirely
overlaid by his subsequent identification with Dionysus, it seems right
to recognise in him and his female counterpart, Libera, a general
spirit of creativeness.
The character of April is much more clearly marked: the month is filled
with a series of festivals--all of a clearly agricultural
nature--prayers for the crops now in the earth, and the purification of
the men and animals on the farm. The series opens with the Fordicidia
on the 15th, when pregnant cows were sacrificed: their unborn calves
were torn from them and burnt, the ashes being kept by the Vestal
Virgin in Vesta's storehouse (_penus Vestæ_) for use at the Parilia.
The general symbolism of fertility is very clear; the goddess
associated with the festival is Tellus, the earth herself, and the
local origin of these festivals is shown in the fact that not only was
the sacrifice made for the whole people on the Capitol, but separately
in each one of the _curiae_. The Fordicidia is closely followed by the
Cerealia on the 19th--the festival of another earth-goddess (_Ceres_,
_creare_)--more especially connected with the growth of corn. A very
curious feature of the ritual was the fastening of fire-brands to the
tails of foxes, which were then let loose in what was afterwards the
Circus Maximus: a symbol possibly, as Wissowa thinks, of sunlight,
possibly of the vegetation-spirit. But the most important of the April
ceremonies is undoubtedly the Parilia of the 21st, the festival of the
very ancient rustic _numen_, Pales. Ovid's[9] description of the
celebration is so interesting and so full of the characteristic colour
of the Roman rustic festivals that I may perhaps be pardoned for
reproducing it at greater length. 'Shepherd,' he says, addressing the
rustic worshipper, 'at the first streak of dawn purify thy well-fed
flocks: let water first besprinkle them, and a branch sweep clean the
ground. Let the folds be adorned with leaves and branches fastened to
them, while a trailing wreath covers the gay-decked gates. Let blue
flames rise from the living sulphur and the sheep bleat loud as she
feels the touch of the smoking sulphur. Burn the male olive-branch and
the pine twig and juniper, and let the blazing laurel crackle amid the
hearth. A basket full of millet must go with the millet cakes: this is
the food wherein the country goddess finds pleasure most of all. Give
her too her own share of the feast and her pail of milk, and when her
share has been set aside, then with milk warm from the cow make prayer
to Pales, guardian of the woods.' The poet then recites a long prayer,
in which the farmer first begs forgiveness for any unwitting sins he
may have committed against the rustic deities, such as trespassing on
their groves or sheltering his flocks beneath their altar, and then
prays for the aversion of disease and the prosperity of crops, flocks,
and herds. 'Thus must the goddess be won, this prayer say four times
turning to the sunrise, and wash thy hands in the running stream. Then
set the rustic bowl upon the table in place of the wine-bowl, and drink
the snowy milk and dark must, and soon through the heaps of crackling
straw leap in swift course with eager limbs.' All the worshippers then
set to leaping through the blazing fires, even the flocks and herds
were driven through, and general hilarity reigned. Many points of
detail might be noticed, such as that in the urban counterpart of the
festival, which Ovid carefully distinguishes from the country
celebrations, the fire was sprinkled with the ashes from the calves of
the Fordicidia and the blood of Mars' October horse--another link
between Mars and agriculture. But it is most interesting to note the
double character of the ceremony--as a purification of man and beast on
the one hand, and on the other a prayer for the prosperity of the
season to come. Three special festivals remain in April. At the Vinalia
(_priora_) of the 23rd, the wine-skins of the previous year were opened
and the wine tasted, and, we may suppose, supplication was made for
the vintage to come, the festival being dedicated to the sky-god,
Iuppiter. At the Robigalia of the 25th the offering of a dog was made
for the aversion of mildew (_robigo_), to Robigus (who looks like a
developed eponymous deity) at the fifth milestone on the Via
Claudia--the ancient boundary of Roman territory. The Floralia of the
28th does not occur in the old Calendars, probably because it was a
moveable feast (_feriae conceptivae_), but it is an unmistakeable
petition to the _numen_ Flora for the blossoming of the season's
flowers.
May was a month of more critical importance for the welfare of the
crops, and therefore its festivals were mostly of a more sombre
character. The 9th, 11th, and 13th were the days set apart for the
Lemuria, the aversion of the hostile spirits of the dead, of which we
have already spoken, and a similarly gloomy character probably attached
to the Agonia of Vediovis on the 21st. But of far the greatest interest
is the moveable feast of the Ambarvalia, the great lustration of the
fields, which took place towards the end of the month: the date of its
occurrence was no doubt fixed according to the state of the crops in
any given year. As the individual farmer purified his own fields for
the aversion of evil, so a solemn lustration of the boundaries of the
state was performed by special priests, known as the Arval brethren
(_fratres Arvales_). With ceremonial dancing (_tripudium_) they moved
along the boundary-marks and made the farmer's most complete offering
of the pig, sheep, and ox (_suovetaurilia_): the fruits of the last
year and the new harvest (_aridae et virides_) played a large part in
the ceremonial, and a solemn litany was recited for the aversion of
every kind of pest from the crops. In Virgil's account the prayer is
made to Ceres, and we know that in imperial times, when the Ambarvalia
became very closely connected with the worship of the imperial house,
the centre of the cult was the earth-goddess, Dea Dia; but in the
earliest account of the rustic ceremony which we possess in Cato, Mars
is addressed in the unmistakeable character of an agricultural deity.
'Father Mars, I pray and beseech thee that thou mayest be gracious and
favourable to me, to my home, and my household, for which cause I have
ordained that the offering of pig, sheep, and ox be carried round my
fields, my land, and my farm: that thou mayest avert, ward off, and
keep afar all disease, visible and invisible, all barrenness, waste,
misfortune, and ill weather: that thou mayest suffer our crops, our
corn, our vines and bushes to grow and come to prosperity: that thou
mayest preserve the shepherds and the flocks in safety, and grant
health and strength to me, to my home, and my household.' We have
perhaps here another rustic ceremony addressed in origin to all
_numina_, whom it might concern, and, as it were, specialising itself
from time to time in an appeal to one definite deity or another, but it
is also clear evidence of an early agricultural association of Mars.
The Ambarvalia is one of the most picturesque of the field ceremonies,
and a peculiarly beautiful and imaginative description of it may be
found in the first chapter of Pater's _Marius the Epicurean_.
In June and July the farmer was waiting for the completion of the
harvest, and the great state-festivals of the period are not
agricultural.
=2. Festivals of the Harvest.=--In August the farmer's hopes are at
last realised, and the harvest is brought in. The season is marked by
two closely connected festivals on the 21st and 25th in honour of the
old divinity-pair, Consus (_condere_), the god of the storehouse and
Ops, the deity of the wealth of harvest. At the Consualia, an offering
is made by the _flamen Quirinalis_, assisted by the Vestal virgins, at
an underground altar in the Circus Maximus, specially uncovered for
the occasion: here we have probably not so much the notion of a
chthonic deity, as a relic of the simple practices of an early
agricultural age, when the crops were stored underground. The beasts
who had taken part in the harvest were released from their labours
during the day, and were decorated with flowers: the festival included
a race of mules, the regular Italian beasts of burden. Four days after
this general festivity occurred the second harvest-ceremony of the
Opiconsivia, held in the shrine (_sacrarium_) of the Regia, and
attended only by the _pontifex maximus_ and the Vestal virgins. This is
clearly the state-harvest of the regal period, the symbolic storing of
the state-crops in the sacred storehouse of the palace by the king and
his daughters. Both festivals are significant, and we shall meet with
Consus and Ops again in close connection in December. The _Portunalia_
of the 17th may have been another harvest-home, if we can believe the
old authorities, who tell us that Portunus was a 'god of doors'
(_portae_).
The _Vinalia Rustica_ of August 19 we cannot sufficiently interpret
through lack of information: it cannot, of course, have been the
festival of the vintage, for it is too early: it may have been a
propitiatory ceremony for the ripening grapes, in which case it was
probably connected with the _auspicatio vindemiae_, in which the
_flamen Dialis_ (note again the association of Iuppiter and the vine)
solemnly plucked the first grapes; or it may be a festival of wine, not
vines, in which case its main feature would most likely be the opening
of the last year's vintage.
September contains no great festival, and the harvest-season closes on
October 11 with the _Meditrinalia_--the nearest approach to a
thanksgiving for the vintage. On that day the first must of the new
vintage and the wine of the old were solemnly tasted, apparently as a
spell against disease, the worshipper using the strange formula, 'I
drink the new and the old wine, with new wine and old I heal (_medeor_)
disease.' This ceremony gave its name to the festival and was the cause
of the subsequent evolution of an eponymous deity, Meditrina, but there
is little doubt that in origin here, as in the other wine-festivals,
the deity concerned was at first Iuppiter. Among the other rustic
ceremonies of the month we may notice the festival of springs
(_Fontinalia_) on October 13: wells were decorated with garlands and
flowers flung into the waters.
=3. Festivals of the Winter.=--The winter-festivals cannot be summed up
under one general notion so easily as those of spring or summer, but
they fall fairly naturally into two groups--the festivals immediately
connected with agricultural life and those associated with the dead and
the underworld or with solemn purification. The main action of the
farmer's life during the winter is, of course, the sowing of the next
year's crop, which was commemorated in the ancient festival of the
Saturnalia on December 17. Though the Saturnalia is perhaps the most
familiar to us of all the Roman festivals, partly from the allusions in
the classics, especially in Horace, partly because it is no doubt the
source of many of our own Christmas festivities, it is yet almost
impossible now to recover anything of its original Roman character.
Greek influence set to work on it very early, identifying Saturnus with
Cronos and establishing him in a Greek temple with all the
accompaniments of Greek ritual. All the familiar features of the
festival--the freedom and license of the slaves, the giving of
presents, even the wax-candles, which are the prototype of those on our
own Christmas-tree--are almost certainly due to Greek origin. We are
left with nothing but the name Saturnus (connected with the root of
_semen_, _serere_) and the date to assure us that we have here in
reality a genuine Roman festival of the sowing of the crops. Of a
similar nature--marking, as Ovid tells us, the completion of the
sowing--was the _feriae sementivae_ or Paganalia, associated with the
earth-goddesses, Ceres and Tellus. Meal-cakes and a pregnant sow were
the offerings, the beasts who had helped in the ploughing were
garlanded, and prayer was made for the seed resting in the ground. A
curious feature of the winter worship is the repetition of festivals to
the harvest deities, Consus and Ops, separated by the same interval of
three days, on December 15 and 19: it may be that we have here an
indication of the final completion of the harvest, or, as Mr. Warde
Fowler has suggested, a ceremonial opening of the storehouses, to see
that the harvest is not rotting. Among the other country festivals of
the period we may notice that of Carmenta, on the 11th and 15th of
January: she seems to have been in origin a water-_numen_, but was
early associated with childbirth: hence the rigid exclusion of men from
her ceremonies and possibly the taboo on leathern thongs, on the ground
that nothing involving death must be used in the worship of a deity of
birth. The repetition of her festival may possibly point to separate
celebrations of the communities of Palatine and Quirinal. At this time,
too, occurred the rustic ceremonies at the boundaries (_Terminalia_)
and the offering to the Lares at the 'marches' (_Compitalia_), of which
we have spoken in treating of the worship of the house.
The other group of winter-festivals is of a much more gloomy and less
definitely rustic type, though they clearly date from the period of the
agricultural community. Of the Feralia of February 21, the culmination
of the festival of the kindred dead (_Parentalia_), we have already
spoken. The Larentalia is a very mysterious occasion, and was supposed
by the Romans themselves to be an offering 'at the tomb' of a legendary
Acca Larentia, mistress of Hercules. But we have seen reason to think
that Larentia was in reality a deity of the dead, and the 'tomb' a
_mundus_: if so, we have another link between the winter season and the
worship of the underworld. There remains the weird festival of the
Lupercalia on February 15, to which we have had occasion to refer
several times, and which has become more familiar to most of us than
other Roman festivals owing to its political use by Mark Antony in 44
B.C. As we have argued already, it seems to belong to the very oldest
stratum of the Palatine settlement, and we may therefore appropriately
close this account of the early festivals with a somewhat fuller
description of it. The worshippers assembled at the Lupercal, a cave on
the Palatine hill: there goats and a dog were sacrificed, and two
youths belonging to the two colleges of Fabian and Quintian (or
Quintilian) Luperci had their foreheads smeared with the knife used for
the sacrifice and wiped with wool dipped in milk--at which point it was
ordained that they should laugh. Then they girt on the skins of the
slain goats and, after feasting, ran their course round the boundaries
of the Palatine hill, followed each by his own company of youths, and
striking women on their way with strips, known as _februae_ or _Iunonis
amicula_, cut from the goats' hides. Here we have a summary of many of
the important points which we have noticed in the rustic festivals:
from the pre-Roman stratum comes the idea of communion with the
sacrificed animal in the smearing of the blood and the wearing of the
skin, and also the magic charm involved in the striking of the women to
procure fertility: it is typical of the true feeling of Roman religion
that we cannot with any certainty tell what deity was associated with
the rite, though probably it was Faunus: the rustic character of the
ceremony is indicated by the bowl of milk in which the wool was dipped
and the sacrifice of goats: the idea of lustration is clearly marked
in the course round the boundaries: the original Palatine settlement
stands out in the limits of that course and the site of the Lupercal,
and the later synoecismus is seen in the, presumably subsequent,
addition of the second college of Luperci. A careful study of the
Lupercalia as an epitome of the character and development of the Roman
agricultural festivals, though it would not show the brighter aspect of
some of the spring and summer celebrations, would yet give a true
notion of the history and spirit of the whole.
FOOTNOTES:
[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 anticipation, 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.
=Ianus.=--We left Ianus as the _numen_ of the house-door: he passes
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
Ianus: 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 god 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 formulæ of prayer, and he is looked upon--not
indeed as the father of the gods--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 Vestæ_) 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 Vestæ_). 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 Ianus, 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 Vestæ_ (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 Praestites_ 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,
passes over to the state and we hear of the _Genius populi Romani_ or
the _Genius urbis Romæ_, 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 gods 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-god he
passes to the state: _Lucetius_ (_lux_) is his title 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-title _Iuppiter Summanus_. But as the little community
grew, and especially perhaps after the union of the two settlements,
the worship of Iuppiter Feretrius, associated 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 Ianus. 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 god 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-title 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 title 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 pass 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 god 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-goddess: 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
association 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 title 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-titles. 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 goddess, 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. |
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