May it not be, that this is respective to the remembrance of an ancient occurrent that sometime befell? For reported it is that long since in the Sabines countrey, one Antion Coratius had a cow, which grew to be exceeding faire and woonderfull bigge withall above any other: and a certeine wizard or soothsaier came unto him and said: How predestined it was that the citie which sacrificed that cow unto Diana in the mount Aventine, should become most puissant and rule all Italy: This Coratius therefore came to Rome of a deliberate purpose to sacrifice the said cow accordingly: but a certaine houshold servant that he had, gave notice secretly unto king Servius Tullius of this prediction delivered by the abovesaid soothsaier: whereupon Servius acquainted the priest of Diana, Cornelius, with the matter: and therefore when Antion Coratius presented himselfe for to performe his sacrifice, Cornelius advertised him, first to goe downe into the river, there to wash; for that the custome and maner of those that sacrificed was so to doe: now whiles Antion was gone to wash himselfe in the river, Servius steps into his place, prevented his returne, sacrificed the cow unto the goddesse, and nailed up the hornes when he had so done, within her temple. Juba thus relateth this historie, and Varro likewise, saving that Varro expressely setteth not downe the name of Antion, neither doth he write that it was Cornelius the priest, but the sexton onely of the church that thus beguiled the Sabine.
5.
Why are they who have beene falsly reported dead in a strange countrey, although they returne home alive, not received nor suffred to enter directly at the dores, but forced to climbe up to the tiles of the house, and so to get downe from the roufe into the house?
Varro rendreth a reason heereof, which I take to be altogether fabulous: for hee writeth, that during the Silician warre, there was a great battell fought upon the sea, and immediately upon it, there ranne a rumour of many that they were dead in this fight; who notwithstanding, they returned home safe, died all within a little while after: howbeit, one there was among the rest, who when he would have entred into his owne house, found the dore of the owne accord fast shut up against him; and for all the forcible meanes that was made to open the same, yet it would not prevaile: whereupon this man taking up his lodging without, just before his dore, as he slept in the night, had a vision which advertised and taught him how he should from the roofe of the house let himselfe downe by a rope, and so get in: now when he had so done, he became fortunate ever after, all the rest of his life; and hee lived to be a very aged man: and heereof arose the foresaid custome, which alwaies afterwards was kept and observed.
But haply this fashion may seeme in some sort to have beene derived from the Greeks: for in Greece they thought not those pure and cleane who had beene caried foorth for dead to be enterred; or whose sepulchre and funerals were solemnized or prepared: neither were such allowed to frequent the company of others, nor suffred to come neere unto their sacrifices. And there goeth a report of a certaine man named Aristinus, one of those who had beene possessed with this superstition, how he sent unto the oracle of Apollo at Delphos, for to make supplication and praier unto the god, for to bee delivered out of this perplexed anxietie that troubled him by occasion of the said custome or law then in force: and that the prophetesse Pythia returned this answer:
Looke whatsoever women doe in childbed newly laid,
Unto their babes, which they brought foorth, the verie same I say
See that be done to thee againe: and after that be sure,
Unto the blessed gods with hands to sacrifice, most pure.
Which oracle thus delivered, Aristinus having well pondered and considered, committed himselfe as an infant new borne unto women for to be washed, to be wrapped in swadling clothes, and to be suckled with the brest-head: after which, all such others, whom we call Hysteropotmous, that is to say, those whose graves were made, as if they had beene dead, did the semblable. Howbeit, some doe say, that before Aristinus was borne, these ceremonies were observed about those Histropotmi, and that this was a right auncient custome kept in the semblable case: and therefore no marvell it is, that the Romans also thought, that such as were supposed to have beene once buried, and raunged with the dead in another world, ought not to enter in at the same porch, out of which they goe, when they purpose to sacrifice unto the gods, or at which they reenter when they returne from sacrifice: but would have them from above to descend through the tiles of the roufe into the close house, with the aire open over their heads: for all their purifications ordinarily they performed without the house abroad in the aire.