The Religious Experience of the Roman People / From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus

by W. Warde Fowler

[233] See De Marchi, La Religione, etc., i. p. 188 and reff. (The reference to Gellius should be iv. 6. 7, not iv. 67.) Like some other operations of the Roman religion, this became a form, and was used as a kind of insurance, whether or no there had been any omission; Wissowa, R.K. p. 160.

[234] That Ceres represented the fructus is shown by the fact that in the XII. Tables the man who raided a field of standing corn at night was made sacer to her; Pliny, N.H. xviii. 12.

[235] Cato, R.R. 134. De Marchi, op. cit. p. 135. Janus, Jupiter, and Juno are concerned in this rite, Ceres coming last. Varro has preserved the part of Tellus for us: "quod humatus non sit, heredi porca praecidanea suscipienda Telluri et Cereri, aliter familia non pura est" (ap. Nonium, p. 163).

[236] The verses are quoted by Dieterich, Mutter Erde, p. 75, among others from Buecheler's Anthology of Roman Epitaphs, Nos. 1544 and 1476. The story is told in Suetonius' Life of Tib. c. 75, and again of Gallienus by Aurelius Victor (Caes. c. 33).

[237] Marquardt, p. 326, who notes that the Romans themselves derived the word from filum, a fillet; e.g. Varro, L.L. v. 84, "quod in Latio capite velato erant semper, ac caput cinctum habebant filo." Modern etymologists equate the word with Brahman.

[238] Thus the Flamen Quirinalis sacrificed at the Robigalia, R.F. p. 89, and with the Pontifices and Vestals took part in the Consualia, Marq. 335.

[239] We may note here that the most general Latin name for a priest was sacerdos, which seems to have excluded all magic, etc.; it means an office sanctioned by the State. On the general question of the origin of priesthood see Jevons, Introduction, etc., ch. xx., with whose explanations, however, I cannot entirely agree. I should prefer to keep the word priest for an official who sacrifices and prays to his god. In this view I am at one with E. Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums, i.² p. 121 foll. God and priest go together as permanent, regular in function, and entrusted by a community with certain duties.

[240] Marquardt, p. 180; Wissowa, R.K. p. 427. The popa or victimarius is seen in many artistic representations of sacrifice, e.g. Schreiber, Atlas of Classical Antiquities, plate xvii. figs. 1 and 3.

[241] Jevons, ch. xx.; Frazer, G.B. i. 245 foll., and Lectures on Early History of Kingship, Lectures ii. and v.

[242] Virg. Aen. viii. 352.