vos quoque abesse procul iubeo, discedat ab aris cui tulit hesterna gaudia nocte Venus. casta placent superis: pura cum veste venite et manibus puris sumite fontis aquam.
These lines indicate an approach at least to the idea of mental as well as material purity; and Cicero in his ius divinum in the de Legibus[369] actually reaches that idea: "caste iubet lex adire ad deos, animo videlicet, in quo sunt omnia: nec tollit castimoniam corporis," etc. But this is the language of a later age, and does not reflect the notions of the old Roman, but rather those of the religious philosophy of the Greek. The personal purity which the Roman rule required was a survival from a set of primitive ideas, closely connected with taboo, which we are only now beginning to understand fully. They are common to all or almost all peoples who have made any progress in systematising their sacrificial worship. As Dr. Westermarck has recently expressed it,[370] "they spring from the idea that the contact of a polluting substance with anything holy is followed by injurious consequences. It is supposed to deprive a deity or holy being of its holiness.... So also a sacred act is believed to lose its sacredness by being performed by an unclean individual." And in the next sentence he goes still farther back in the history of the belief, pointing out that a polluting substance is itself held to contain mysterious energy of a baneful kind. But I must leave this interesting subject now; the story of the evolution of the habit of cleanliness from these ancient ideas will be found in the thirty-ninth chapter of his Origin and Development of Moral Ideas.
Coming next to the act of sacrifice itself, it is needless to say that the victim must be as exactly fitted to please the deity—if that be the right way to express the obligation—as the priest who sacrificed it. It must be of the right kind, sex, age, colour; it must go willingly to the slaughter, adorned with fillets and ribbons (infulae, vittae), in order to mark it off from other animals as holy; in the case of oxen, we hear also of the gilding of the horns, but this must have been costly and unusual.[371] All these details were doubtless laid down in the ius divinum, and in later times, when the deities dwelt in roofed temples, they were embodied in the lex or charter of each temple.[372] I do not need to go into them here minutely; for my present purpose, the elucidation of the meaning which the Romans attached to sacrificial worship, it will be sufficient to point out that all victims, so far as we know, were domestic animals, and in almost all cases they were valuable property (pecunia), such as belonged to the stock of the Latin farmer, ox, sheep, pig, varying according to age and sex. Goats were used at the Lupercalia, and a horse was sacrificed to Mars, as we have seen, on October 15, and at the Robigalia in April a red dog was offered to the spirit of the mildew. But though time forbids me to explain all these rules, a careful study of the evidence for them is most useful for any one who wishes to understand the influence of the ius divinum on the mind of the early Roman. In the family what rules were needed were matter of tradition; deities were few, and offerings limited. But in the city-state it was very different; here even the di indigetes were many, with diverse wishes and likings as well as functions: how were these to be ascertained and remembered at the right moment? Here, as in all methods of securing the pax deorum, a central supervising authority was needed, in whose knowledge and wisdom the whole community had confidence; and he was found in the rex, as is clearly shown in the whole traditional account of the priest-king Numa. Very naturally tradition also ascribed to Numa the institution of the pontifices, whom the historical Romans knew as succeeding the rex in the supervision of religious law.[373]
If all went well, the victim going willingly and no ill omen supervening, the actual slaughter followed at the altar. During the whole operation silence was enjoined; the priests' heads were veiled with the folds of the toga;[374] pipers (tibicines) continued to play, in order that no unlucky sound or word might be heard which would make it necessary to start afresh with another victim (instauratio). Immediately before the slaughter the victim was made holier than ever by sprinkling upon it fragments of sacred cake made of far (immolatio), and by pouring on it libations of wine from a foculus or movable altar containing this holy condiment, together with incense if that were used in the rite. As soon as it was dead, the internal organs were examined to make sure that there was no physical defect or abnormal growth, for it was, of course, quite as necessary that the animal should be "purus" within as without; this was the only object of the examination, until the Etruscan art of extipicina made its way to Rome. What became of the blood we are not told; I have already remarked that blood has curiously little part in Roman ritual and custom.[375] But the exta, i.e. internal organs of life, were separated from the rest of the carcase, and carefully cooked in holy vessels, before being laid upon the altar (porrectio), together with certain slices of flesh called magmenta, or increase-offerings, while the rest of the flesh, which had now lost its holiness, was retained for the use of the priests.[376] The time occupied in the actual slaughter and inspection of the organs was not long; but the cooking of these must have been often a lengthy process. Ovid tells us how on April 25 he met the Flamen Quirinalis carrying out the exta of a dog and a sheep, which had been sacrificed at Rome to Robigus that morning, in order to lay them on the altar of that deity at the fifth milestone on the Via Claudia.[377] Certain days in the calendar, called endotercisi, which were nefasti in morning and evening, were fasti in the middle of the day, between the slaying of a victim and the placing of its exta on the altar (inter hostiam caesam et exta porrecta).[378]
I have so far purposely omitted one important detail—the prayer which, so far as we know, invariably accompanied the sacrifice. It is not absolutely certain at what moment of the rite it was said at Rome; in the ritual of Iguvium we find it occurring immediately before the placing of the exta on the altar;[379] but as that ritual is a processional one, concerned with sacrifices at several spots, the two chief parts of the rite, the slaughter and the porrectio, probably followed closely on one another. We may perhaps guess that where these two parts were separated by a considerable interval, as in the majority of Roman festivals, the prayer was said by the priest also at the moment of porrectio. The prayer is so important a detail as to need separate handling—important because it helps us to interpret the ideas of the Romans about their sacrifices, and the attitude in which they conceived themselves as standing towards the deities whom they thus approached. I propose to occupy the rest of this lecture in considering this most interesting topic. I wish first to draw attention to a particular feature, or rather expression, which occurs in the authentic wording of certain prayers which we are lucky enough to possess, because I think it throws some light on the meaning which the Romans attached to the sacrifice it accompanied; and secondly, to consider the character of Roman prayers generally, in view of a question now being largely discussed, i.e. whether prayer is a development from spell or charm, belonging in its origin to the region of magic.
We have various forms of prayer surviving in Roman literature: some of them are versified by the poets, and therefore give us a general impression of the contents without the actual and genuine wording; we have also two fragments of ancient carmina which have the form of prayers, those of the Salii and the Fratres Arvales; and we have certain forms used on special occasions, such as the evocatio of the gods of a hostile community, or the formulae of vows (vota) which I must postpone to the next lecture. But the only unquestionably genuine old Roman prayers used at sacrifice, taken from the books of the pontifices and preserved word for word, are those which Cato embodied in his treatise on agriculture in the second century b.c., as proper to be used with sacrifice on certain occasions in the agricultural year.[380] It is here that we meet with the phrase, familiar in another form to all Latin scholars, on which I wish to lay stress now. It occurs in all the four forms of prayer which Cato copied down. The first is at the time of the flowering of the pear-trees, on behalf of the oxen: "Iuppiter dapalis, quod tibi fieri oportet in domo familia mea culignam vini dapi eius rei[381] ergo, macte hac illace dape polucenda esto." And again, when the wine is offered: "Iuppiter dapalis, macte istace dape polucenda esto. Macte vino inferio esto." So in the piacular sacrifice when a clearing is made, the unknown deity is addressed in the last words of the prayer thus: "harum rerum ergo macte hoc porco piaculo immolando esto." We find this macte esto again in the prayer for the ceremony of lustratio, at the end of the formula: "macte hisce suovetaurilibus lactentibus immolandis esto." In the rite of the porca praecidanea, to which I have already referred, the instruction for the invocation of Jupiter runs: "Fertum (i.e. a kind of cake) Iovi obmoveto et mactato sic, Iuppiter, te hoc ferto obmovendo bonas preces precor, uti sies volens propitius mihi liberisque meis domo familiaeque meae mactus hoc ferto." Janus gets another kind of cake (strues) and a wine-offering, and is addressed in the same way. Then we read, "Iovi fertum obmoveto mactatoque item, ut prius feceris."
What is the real meaning of this phrase macte esto, which must surely have been in universal use at sacrifices, not only at private rites like those of Cato, since it came to be used in common speech of congratulation or felicitation, e.g. macte virtute esto?[382] Servius in commenting on Virgil has made it sufficiently clear. He explains it as magis aucte, and connects it with magmentum, increase-offering, quasi magis augmentum, and adds that when the victims had been slain and their exta placed on the altar, they were said to be mactatae. So, too, in another comment he seems to connect the word with the victim rather than with the deity. But he is quite clear as to the meaning of the word, as signifying an increase or addition of some kind; and though his etymology is wrong, we may be sure that he was right in this respect, for it is beyond doubt built on a base, mac or mag, which produced magnus, maius, maiestas, and so on. "Macte nova virtute puer" means "Be thou increased, strengthened in virtus"; a fragment of Lucilius (quoted by Servius) brings this out well, "Macte inquam virtute simulque his viribus esto," and another from Ennius, "Livius inde redit magno mactatus triumpho."[383] We might almost translate it in these passages by "glorified"; but it most certainly includes the meaning of "strengthened" or "increased in might."
Now in the formulae of Cato we have seen that it is applied to the deity and not to the victim; this naturally did not occur to Servius, whose mind was occupied rather with Virgil and the literary use of the word than with the original use and meaning of the language of prayer. Undoubtedly he has made a mistake here, which Cato's piety has enabled us to detect. It was, in fact, the deity whose strength was to be increased by the offerings; so much at least seems to me to be beyond doubt. There is, indeed, no certain trace in the ritual, or in Roman literature, that the gods were supposed to consume the exta, or the cakes and wine offered them; that primitive notion must have been excluded from the ius divinum. But instead of it we find the more spiritual idea that by placing on the altar the organs of the life of the victim, with ancient forms of sacred cake and offerings of wine, the vitality of the deity, his power to help his worshippers, to make the corn grow and the cattle bring forth young, to aid the State against enemies, or what not, was really increased in this semi-mystic way. Let us remember that the Roman numina were powers constantly at work in their own sphere; they are the various manifestations of the one Power as conceived in immediate relation to man and his wants; they are sometimes addressed in prayer, as we have seen, by additional titles which suggest their strength and vitality: Virites Quirini, Nerio Martis, Moles Martis, Maia or Maiestas Volcani. What, then, could be more natural than that the Roman should call upon his divine fellow-citizen to accept that which, according to ancient tradition and practice, will keep up his strength, and at the same time increase his glory and his goodwill towards his worshippers? This is, then, the idea which I believe to have been at the root of Roman sacrificial ritual, and it seems to confirm the dynamic theory of sacrifice recently propounded by some French anthropologists, i.e. that a mystic current of religious force passed through the victim, from priest to deity, and perhaps back again.[384] I believe that we have here a transitional idea of the virtue of sacrifice—an idea that bridges over the gulf between the crude notion that the gods actually partake of the offering, and the later more spiritual view that the offering is an honorary gift "to the glory of God." It seems also to be found in the Vedic religion. Dr. Farnell writes: "In the Vedic ritual we find a pure and spiritual form of prayer; yet a certain spell-power may attach even to the highest types, for we find not infrequently the conception that not only the power of the worshipper, but the power of the deity also is nourished and strengthened by prayer, and the prayer itself is usually accompanied by a potent act (such as that of sacrifice). "May our prayers increase Agni": "The prayers fill thee with power and strengthen thee, like great rivers the Sindhu."[385]
I must now turn to the form and manner of Roman prayers, in order to gain further light on the question as to the mental attitude of the worshipper towards the deity invoked. Of late years there has been a strong tendency to find the origin of prayer in spell; or, in other words, to discover a bridge between that mental attitude which believes that a deity can be forced into a certain course of action by magical formulae, and the humble attitude of the petitioner in prayer, which assumes that the power of the deity altogether transcends that of his worshipper. The evidence of Roman prayers is, I think, of considerable value in dealing with this question; but it needs to be carefully studied and handled. The general impression conveyed by those who have written on the subject is that Roman prayers were dull, dry formulae, which were believed to have a constraining influence on the deity simply as formulae, if they were repeated with perfect precision the right number of times. Dr. Westermarck, for example, has no shadow of a doubt about this; quoting Renan, he says that "in the Roman, as in the majority of the old Italian cults, prayer is a magic formula, producing its effect by its own inherent quality." And again, he writes that the Romans were much more addicted to magic than to religion; "they wanted to compel the gods rather than to be compelled by them. Their religio was probably near akin to the Greek κατἁδεσμοϛ, which meant not only an ordinary tie, but also a magic tie or knot or a bewitching thereby."[386] I need not stop to point out the misconception of the word religio which suggested the whole of this passage; the supposed derivation from ligare was quite enough to suggest magic to those who are on the trail of it.[387] Let us go on to examine the prayers themselves; I think we shall find that though there is much truth in the common view of them, it is not quite the whole truth.
The oldest Roman prayers we possess are usually called hymns, because the Latin word for them was carmen, viz. the Carmen Saliare, which is too obscure and fragmentary to be of use to us, and the Carmen of the Arval Brethren, which is preserved on stone and is quite intelligible.[388] The word carmen, let us notice, was used by the old Romans for any kind of metrical formula, whether hymn, prayer, or spell. Pliny, when writing of magic and incantations, plainly includes prayer among them;[389] and Dr. Jevons has recently pointed out that singing, and especially singing in a low voice or muttered tones, is a characteristic of magic not only in Greece and Rome, but in many parts of the world at the present day.[390] The evidence of the word is thus strongly in favour of the view that these ancient carmina of Roman worship were really spells; and the Carmen Arvalium itself does not contradict it. After an elaborate sacrificial ceremonial the priests, using a written copy of the carmen (libellis acceptis), danced in triple rhythm (tripodaverunt) while they sang it; it consisted of six clauses, each repeated three times. "Enos Lases iuvate! Neve luerve Marmar sins incurrere in pleores! Satur fu fere Mars, limen sali, sta berber! Semunes alternei advocapit cunctos! Enos Marmar iuvato! Triumpe!" With the precise interpretation of these words I am not now concerned; but they obviously contain invocations to the Lares and Mars, which may be either petitions or commands, and which perhaps are really on the borderland between the two; and as thrice repeated, and accompanied with dancing and gesticulation, they seem certainly to belong rather to the region of magic than of religion proper.