[338] e.g. Vaticanus, "qui infantum vagitibus praesidet"; Rusina from rus; Consus from consilium, etc.
[339] See above, p. 84.
LECTURE VIII
RITUAL OF THE IUS DIVINUM
I have already frequently mentioned the ius divinum, the law governing the relations between the divine and human inhabitants of the city, as the ius civile governed the relations between citizen and citizen.[340] When we examined the calendar of Numa, we were in fact examining a part of this law; we began with this our studies of the religion of the Roman city-state, because it is the earliest document we possess which illuminates the dark ages of city life, so far as religion is concerned. The study of the calendar naturally led us on to consider the evidence it yields, taken together with other sources of information, as to the nature of the deities for whose worship it fixes times and seasons, or, more accurately, the amount of knowledge to which the Romans had attained about their divine beings. But we must now return to the ius divinum, and study it in another aspect, for which the calendar itself does not suffice as evidence.
Perhaps the simplest way of explaining this ius is to describe it as laying down the rules for the maintenance of right relations between the citizens and their deities; as ordaining what things are to be done or avoided in order to keep up a continual pax, or quasi-legal covenant, between these two parties. The two words ius and pax, we may note, are continually meeting us in Roman religious documents. In a prayer sanctioned by the pontifices for use at the making of a new clearing, we read: "Si deus, si dea sit cuius illud sacrum est, ut tibi ius siet porco piaculo facere illiusce sacri coercendi ergo,"[341] i.e. "O unknown deity, whether god or goddess, whose property this wood is, let it be legally proper to sacrifice to thee this pig as an expiatory offering, for the sake of cutting down trees in this wood of thine." "Pacem deorum exposcere" (or "petere") is a standing formula, as all readers of Virgil know;[342] and it occurs in many other authors and religious documents. When Livy wants to express the horror of the old patrician families at the idea of plebeians being consuls—men who had no knowledge of the ius divinum and no right to have any—he makes Appius Claudius exclaim, "Nunc nos, tanquam iam nihil pace deorum opus sit, omnes caerimonias polluimus."[343] How can we maintain our right relations with the gods, if plebeians have the care of them?
Thus it is not going too far to describe the whole Roman religion of the city-state as a Rechtsverkehr,[344] a legal process going on continually. When a colonia was founded, i.e. a military outpost which was to be a copy in all respects of the Roman State, it was absolutely essential that its ius divinum should be laid down; it must have a religious charter as well as a civil one. Even at the very end of the life of the Republic, when Caesar founded a colony in Spain, he ordained that, within ten days of its first magistrates taking office, they should consult the Senate "quos et quot dies festos esse et quae sacra fieri publice placeat et quos ea sacra facere placeat," i.e. as to the calendar, the ritual, and the priesthood.[345] The Romans, of course, assumed that Numa, their priest-king, had done the same thing for Rome; Livy describes him as ordaining a pontifex to whom he entrusted the care of all these matters, with written rules to follow.[346] This was the imaginary religious charter of the Roman State. Without it the citizen, or rather his official representative, would not know with the necessary accuracy the details of the cura and caerimonia; without it, too, the deities could not be expected to perform their part of advancing the interests of the State, and indeed, as I think we shall find, could not be expected to retain the strength and vitality which they needed for the work. Support was needed on each side; the State needed the help of the gods, and the gods needed the help of the State's care and worship.
The ways and means towards the maintenance of this pax were as follows. First, the deities must be duly placated, and their powers kept in full vigour, by the ritual of sacrifice and prayer, performed at the proper times and places by authorised persons skilled in the knowledge of that ritual. Secondly, there must be an exact fulfilment of all vows or solemn promises made to the deities by the State or its magistrates, or by such private persons as might have made similar engagements. Thirdly, the city, its land and its people, must be preserved from all evil or hostile influences, whether spiritual or material or both, by the process broadly known as lustratio, which we commonly translate purification. Lastly, strict attention must be paid to all outward signs of the will of the gods, as shown by omens and portents of various kinds. This last method of securing the pax became specially prominent much later in Roman history, and I prefer to postpone detailed discussion of it for the present; but the other three we will now examine, with the help of evidence mainly derived from facts of cult, not from the fancies of mythologists.