[214] Nothing, that is, in the regular ritual of the Roman State—except in so far as the killing of a criminal who was sacer to a god can be so regarded; and the only instance of any kind that can be quoted is that of the two pairs of Gaulish and Greek men and women who in the stress of the second Punic war and afterwards were buried alive, as it was said, in the Forum Boarium. Wissowa, R.K. p. 355 and notes. I shall return to this in Lecture XIV.
[215] The earliest mention of the slaying of a victim (bestiarius) to Jupiter is in Minucius Felix, Octav. 22 and 30, i.e. towards the end of the second century a.d. or even later. Cp. Tertull. Apol. 9, Lactantius i. 21. I do not go so far as to say with Wissowa (p. 109, note 3) that this story is "ganz gewiss apokryph," but I take it as simply a case of degeneracy under the influence of the amphitheatre and of Orientalism.
[216] For Numa see Schwegler, Rom. Gesch. i. 551 foll.
[217] See Dr. Frazer's most recent account of this subject, in his Lectures on the Early History of the Kingship, chaps, iii.-v. Prof. Ridgeway's idea that the Flamen Dialis was really a Numan institution is of course simply impossible, and the arguments he founds on it fall to the ground. Ovid, probably reflecting Varro, speaks of the Flamen Dialis as belonging to the Pelasgian religion, which at least means that he was aware of the extreme antiquity of the office; Fasti, ii. 281. Dr. Döllinger (The Gentile and the Jew, vol. ii. p. 72) with his usual insight was inclined to see in this Flamen the "ruins of an older system of ceremonial ordinances."
[218] He was sui iuris (Gaius i. 130), as soon as he was chosen or taken (captus) by the Pontifex maximus; but he was subject to the authority of the P.M., like all the other flamines and the Vestals. See Wissowa, R.K. p. 438; Tac. Ann. iv. 16.
LECTURE VI
THE DIVINE OBJECTS OF WORSHIP
We must now turn our attention to what is the most difficult part of our subject, the ideas of the early Romans about "the Power manifesting itself in the universe." In my first lecture I indicated in outline what the difficulties are which beset us all through our studies; they are in no part of it so insurmountable as in this. Material fails us, because there was no contemporary literature; because the Romans were not a thinking people, and probably thought very little about the divine beings whom they propitiated; and again, because comparative religion, as it is called, is of scant value in such a study. We have to try and get rid of our own ideas about God or gods, to keep our minds free of Greek ideas and mythology, and, in fact, to abstain from bringing the ideas of any other peoples to bear upon the question until we are pretty sure that we have some sort of understanding of those Roman ideas with which we are tempted to compare them. The first duty of the student of any system of religion is to study that religion in and by itself. As M. S. Reinach observed in an address at the Congress for the History of Religions at Oxford, it is time that we began to attend to differences as well as similarities; and this can only be done by the conscientious use of such materials as are available for the study of each particular religion.